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LIBRARY OF CONGRES&I 

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UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 






BIOGRAPHICAL H/ND-BOOK 



GEM PORTRAIT GALLERY: 

MNENT 



CONTAINING 






^A 



*a\ vj 



CONDENSED SKETCHES OF EM 



AUTHORS, 

POETS, 

NOVELISTS, 

TRAVELERS, 

EXPLORERS, 



INVENTORS, 

SCIENTISTS, 

STATESMEN, 

ORATORS, 

RULERS, 



MINISTERS, 

THEOLOGIANS, 

ARTISTS, 

COMPOSERS, 

MUSICIANS, 



NEARLY ONE THOUSAND 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 



APR 23 1880./ 
'% y ^°9 9 My 



ROCHESTER, N. H.: 

S. SWAINE, PHOTOGRAPHER AND PUBLISHER. 

1886 



"O 









j 


THE LIBRARY] 
OFCONGRESf 

WASHINGTON | 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1885, 

By S. SWAINE, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 

Electrotyped by 

H. C. Whitcomb & Co., 42 Arch St., 

BOSTON. 




PRESS OF RAND, AYERY & CO., 117 FRANKLIN ST., BOSTON. 



PREFACE. 



Next to personal acquaintance with eminent men is 
familiarity with their biographies. 

This little volume, with its accompanying portraits of 
one hundred and eighty-two foremost writers, artists, 
statesmen, scientists, and inventors, is an attempt to 
meet a real want. The likeness, and the life-story, and 
a suggestive and characteristic thought, taken together, 
will tell students and readers much more than either 
separately. 

While the "Gem Portrait Gallery" will adorn the 
home and be an educating force in the household, these 
sketches of biography will increase the desire to know 
more of the world's chief thinkers and actors. The lists 
of best works by poets, novelists, and historians, will 
guide to a wiser use of libraries. The "Gems of Prose 
and Poetry" will enrich many a mind, and improve liter- 
ary taste. 

Rochester, N. H., March 1, 1886. 



BIOGRAPHICAL HAND-BOOR 

OF THE 

GEM PORTRAIT GALLERY. 



AUTHORS. 
BACON, Sir Francis, was born Jan. 22, 1561 and died 

April 9, 1626. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge; ad- 
mitted to the bar at the age of twenty-one; became Lord High Chan- 
cellor of England in 1618. On his own confession of bribe-taking and 
official corruption lie was impeached April 22, 1621, and sentenced to 
pay a fine of £40,000, and to be imprisoned during the royal pleasure. 
He was the first writer and orator of his own age, and one of the few 
foremost men in intellectual power of all the ages. His "Essays" 
take a foremost rank in the English classics. Pope, who wrote one 
hundred and twenty -five years later, called Bacon "The wisest, 
brightest, meanest of mankind. " Bacon claimed for himself that he 
had been "England's justest Chancellor for many years. " 

ADDISON, Joseph, was born May 1, 1672. His father 
was a clergyman and desired his son to " take orders, " but the young 
man chose to mingle with politics and literature. He became a mem- 
ber of Parliament in 1708, and retained his seat until his death. He 
was not eflicient as a statesman. His fame as a writer rests upon the 
M Spectator, " a kind of daily paper, or rather a series of daily essays 
continued about two years, and published by Steele and Addison. Of 
the whole number, 635, Addison wrote 274. His essays are " English 
undefiled. " He married at the age of forty -five. His courtship was 
long. His married life was brief, only three years, and very unhap- 
py. He died June 17, 1719. 

JOHNSON, Samuel. The pages of English literature 

have but few names more prominent than that of Dr. Johnson. He 
was a child of poverty. Through most of his life he was fighting the 
11 wolf at the door, " or wrestling with the demon of debt. His finest 
piece of literary work is " Rasselas "—written in the evenings of 
one week, for which he received £100. He wrote volumes of popular 
essays under the titles of "The Idler" and "The Rambler." Like 



6 AUTHORS. 



Addison in the " Spectator " and " Tattler, " Johnson sought in his 
writings to educate his fellowmen. His greatest service to literature 
was his dictionary of the English language, upon which he spent 
seven years. He died Dec. 13, 1784, aged seventy -five years. 

DE FOE, Daniel, has been called "The father and 
founder of the English novel." His most enduring literary monument 
is the story of " Robinson Crusoe. " In his own day he was known as 
one of the keenest of satirists, and his political pamphlets were numer- 
ous and trenchant. He died in April, 1731, at the age of threescore 
and ten — and died insolvent, though the author of 210 books and 
pamphlets. He said of himself : — 

"No man has tasted different fortunes more, 
And thirteen times I have been rich and poor. " 
De Foe was the author of that famous couplet, — 
" Wherever God erects a house of prayer, 
The devil always builds a chapel there. " 

SWIFT, Jonathan, was born in Dublin, Nov. 30, 
1697, and there he died Oct. 19, 1745. His ancestry was English. He 
is known as Dean Swift, having held the Deanery of St. Patrick's 
Cathedral, Dublin, from 1713 until his death. He was officially a 
clergyman, but he was chiefly a political satirist. He made politics 
a trade by which to get ecclesiastical preferment. With his caustic 
pen he dictated the political opinions of his times. He was a prince 
in the use of satire. His principal works were the "Tale of a Tub, " 
" Drapier's Letters" and " Gulliver's Travels." This last named work 
will abide Avhen all the rest of his many volumes shall cease to be 
read. It is said of Swift that he delighted in seeming worse than he 
was. When in London he would attend worship at an early hour to 
avoid being seen going to church. He managed to read prayers with 
his servants daily for six months without the knowledge of a friend 
who was his guest all the while. Swift made love to three young 
ladies — the first declined his offer of marriage, and the other two he 
dallied with, either uncertain which to choose or not really caring 
for either. He married one of them, however, but the ceremony was 
secret and their relation was never made public. In 1736 he became 
an invalid, and for several years he was at intervals a furious lunatic. 
His last three years he was imbecile — in a speechless torpor. 

GIBBON, Edward, born April 27, 1737, was the only 
one. of seven children who survived infancy. While a youth he re- 
nounced Protestantism and became a Roman Catholic. At 17 years 
of age he was again a Protestant, and soon after became an avowed 
sceptic. He was in the House of Commons eight years but never 
made a speech. He was a constant supporter of Lord North in Eng- 
land's attempt to subdue the American colonies. Gibbon never 



AUTHORS. 



married, though for a time under promise to marry the lady who 
subsequently became Madame Necker — the mother of Madame De 
Stael. Gibbon's one great and monumental literary work was the 
history of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. " He was 
eleven years in study and writing before the first volume appeared, 
and twelve years more elapsed before the last volume was published. 
It is the greatest historical work in the English language— it is, in 
reality, the history of the world for thirteen centuries. Christianity 
received no aid from the magic of Gibbon's language. His imagina- 
tion was dead to the moral dignity of the Christian religion. England 
has had three great historians, and Gibbon was the foremost. He 
died Jan. 16, 1794 at the age of fifty-seven. 

PRESCOTT, William H., was born in Salem, Mass., 

May 4, 1796, and died in Boston, Jan. 28, 1859. This is a regal name 
in the list of American authors. He came of good blood. His grand- 
father was the real commander on Bunker Hill. Wm. H. was gradu- 
ated at Harvard College at the age of eighteen years. During his 
senior year, a classmate playfully threw a crust of bread which struck 
Prescott and almost wholly destroyed the sight of one eye, and this 
injury eventually so impaired the other eye that during the latter half 
of his life he could read but a few minutes at a time, and could scarce- 
ly see to write at all. Notwithstanding this calamity Mr. Prescott 
determined upon a literary career, and in 1819 he proposed for him- 
self ten years of historical study, to be followed by ten years of writ- 
ing. In 1837 he published his " History of Ferdinand and Isabella" 
in three volumes. Then he spent six years upon "The Conquest of 
Mexico, " and four years more brought out the " Conquest of Peru. " 
These histories secured for their author most honorable recognition 
in all literary circles of Europe. He next prepared to write " Philip 
II.," and had completed three volumes, when Death commanded this 
untiring worker to rest. He was dependent upon others to read to 
him, and to do most of his writing during many long years. He is an 
example of heroic effort and noble success under very great difficul- 
ties. He made truth more charming than fiction. Mr. Prescott was 
exceedingly methodical in all his habits. He regulated his weight of 
clothing daily by the thermometer, invariably walked five miles a 
day, ( in doors if stomry ) worked five hours daily upon his histories, 
listened to novel-reading two hours a day— Scott, Dickens, Dumas, 
and Sue being his favorite authors, — and used a tenth of his income 
in charity. 

BAXCROFT, George, was born in Worcester, Mass., 

Oct. 3, 1800. He was graduated at Harvard in 1817— three years later 
than Prescott. The next five years were spent in study and travel in 
Europe. His one great literary work has been a "History of the 



AUTHORS. 



United States"— the first volume of which appeared in 1834, the tenth 
and last appearing forty years later. No citizen of America can af- 
ford not to read this history. Mr. Bancroft has been a statesman as 
well as historian. He was Secretary of the Navy under President 
Polk, and the Naval Academy at Annapolis was established under his 
administration. In 1846 he was our national minister at the Court of 
St. James. In 1867 he was sent in like capacity to Berlin. He still 
lives— having (at this writing) just celebrated the completion of 
fourscore and four years. 

ABBOTT, John S. C, was born in Brunswick, Me., 
Sept. 18, 1805, and died at Fair Haven, Conn., June 17, 1877. He was 
a member of Bowdoin's most famous class— that of 1825. Abbott be- 
came a Congregational clergyman, and was in the pastorate some 
fifteen years. From 1844 to 1866 he was out of the pastorate, devoting 
himself wholly to literature. His principal works are histories of 
"Napoleon Bonaparte," " Napoleon III.," " Frederick II. , " and 
"Civil War in America. " 

MOTLEY, John L., was born in Dorchester, Mass., 
April 15, 1814 ; was graduated at Harvard in 1831 ; studied a few years 
in Europe; on his return home he took up the study of law, and was 
admitted to the bar in 1836. Literature, however, was his congenial 
field, and he soon gave up the practice of law and for a few years 
wrote popular stories and review articles. In 1846 he began to pre- 
pare an historical work upon Holland. Ten years of work brought 
out the " Rise of the Dutch Republic, " a standard history which was 
soon translated into the leading languages of Europe. Other and 
kindred works followed, as, the " History of the United Netherlands," 
•'Life and Death of John of Barneveld, " and "The Thirty Years 
War." Motley is one of America's three chief historians. He was 
several years United States minister at London and Vienna. He died 
May 29, 1877. 

MACAULAY, Thomas Babington, born Oct. 25, 1800, 

died Dec. 28, 1859, was one of England's most brilliant, versatile men. 
He was "a star of first magnitude" while yet in college, and his active 
public life realized the rich promise of his young manhood. He was 
for many years in Parliament, and two years before his death he was 
made a Peer of England. For twenty years he was connected with 
the Edinburgh Review. In 1840 a collection of his Review articles 
was published in Boston under the title of "Miscellanies" in two 
volumes. He might have ranked as a prince among poets. No Eng- 
lishman outranks him as an essayist. His greatest work was a "His- 
tory of England from the Accession of James II. " ( 1685) to 1701— the 
fifth and last volume being published after his death. 



AUTHORS. 



CARLYLE, Thomas, was a Scotchman, born in Eccle- 
fechan, Dec. 4, 1795. The annals of literature have many strange, ec- 
centric characters, and Carlyle was one of the strangest of all strange 
men. At once essayist and historian he occupied a place in English 
literature peculiarly his own. Vigorous and strong in his language, 
excelling in power of dramatic description, a lofty moral spirit at 
times pervading his writings, and again his pages darkened by grim 
mockery and the burlesque, he has given occasion for the criticism 
of the literati. He has been called " rude, harsh, relentless, unsympa- 
thetical;" while others knew him —with all his quaintness— as "pos- 
sessed of a warm heart, full of compassion for the suffering, toiling 
masses of humanity." His career as a "Writer of Books," as he fitly 
styled himself, covers a period of more than half a century. He has 
written many things which could wisely have been left unsaid, but 
the influence of his odd and powerful style, now termed " Carlylese, " 
will be manifest long after much of the tine writing of the day has 
been forgotten; students and scholars, however, will never read him 
as they will read Macaulay. Carlyle's works as finally collected and 
arranged by himself comprise about thirty octavo volumes. Among 
his principal productions are "Sartor Resartus, " "French Revolu- 
tion, " "Heroes and Hero Worship," and " Frederick the Great," — 
this last, in six volumes, being probably the best. His death occurred 
Feb. 5,1881. 

MERLE D'AUBIGNE, Jean Henri, a Swiss clergy- 
man and historian, was born near Geneva, Aug. 16, 1791, and died in 
Geneva, Oct. 21, 1872. His principal work was a "History of the 
Reformation of the 16th century, " in five volumes, of which 600,000 
copies have been sold in Great Britain and the United States. 

PARTOX, James, was born in Canterbury, England, 
Feb. 9, 1822. When five years of age he was brought to the United 
States, His literary work has been chiefly biographical, and among 
his principal subjects are Aaron Burr, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas 
Jefferson, and Horace Greeley. He has also been a successful lecturer. 
He married, in 1S56, Sara Payson Willis, sister of N. P. Willis, better 
known as "Fanny Fern;" and after her death, in 1872, married her 
daughter by her first marriage. 

IRVING, Washington, was born in New York city, 

Apr. 3, 1783, and died in Tarry town, N. Y., Nov. 28, 1859. No American 
prose writer has adorned the English language more than Irving. He 
was our first and foremost classic author. Before his death there 
had been sold 600,000 volumes of his works, and for a long time after 
his death the annual sales amounted to 30,000 volumes. His first noted 
work was a most laughable history of New York, under the pseudo- 
nym of "Diedrich Knickerbocker." Among his other works are 



10 AUTHORS. 



" Sketch Book;" " Tales of a Traveller," "Life and Voyages of Colum- 
bus, " and "Conquest of Granada." The work upon which he 
spent most time and which was, in the highest sense, the one " labor 
of love " of his life, was the " Life of Washington, " in five volumes, 
the last of which was completed only three months before the author's 
death. It is a suggestive fact that such a writer as Irving ever met 
with difficulty in obtaining a publisher; but so it was, for when the 
"Sketch Book" (written, in England) was ready for the press no 
English publisher would take it, even though it was most warmly com- 
mended by Walter Scott. Afterward many publishers would have 
paid lavishly for the copyright of the book which tells of Rip Van 
Winkle and Sleepy Hollow. Dr. Johnson once asked sneeringly, 
" The Americans ! what do they read? " and he was aptly answered, 
"The Rambler, Sir." Sydney Smith once asked, "Who reads an 
American book ? " Irving's "Sketch Book" silenced the spirit that 
asked that question. 

HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel, was born in Salem, Mass., 
July 4, 1804. He was educated at Bowdoin College in that famous 
class with Abbott, Cheever, Longfellow and others. His mother, in 
her widowhood, took her meals alone in her chamber for thirty years, 
and the son was naturally a recluse, taking his walks by night and 
spending his days in study, writing wild tales and then burning his 
manuscript. Except for the constraint of friends who discovered his 
genius for story -writing Hawthorne would probably never have pub- 
lished a book. He was one of the founders of the "Brook Farm 
Community." "Mosses from an Old Manse," "Scarlet Letter," 
"House of Seven Gables," "Blithedale Romance," and "Marble 
Faun " are among the best things written by Hawthorne. In 1864 he 
was traveling for his health through New Hampshire with his friend 
ex-President Pierce, and stopping at the hotel in Plymouth, was 
found dead in his bed May 19. 

LAMB, Charles, an English essayist, was born in 
London, Feb. 18, 1775, and died in Edmonton, Dec. 27, 1834. An im- 
pediment in his speech precluded his securing a university education. 
At seventeen years of age he entered the service of the East India 
Company as an accountant, and remained in that service thirty-three 
years. He never married. His life was full of care and sadness on 
account of his sister Mary, who was subject to spells of insanity. In 
one of those fits she attacked and killed their mother. Many a time, 
as the fit was coming on, Charles tenderly took her by the hand and 
led her away, at her request, to a neighboring asylum. This sym- 
pathy for her may have been intensified by a personal experience- 
Charles himself having been six weeks a lunatic at the age of twenty. 
His first compositions were in verse, written slowly and at long 



AUTHORS. 11 



intervals. At thirty -five years of age he was writing some of his finest 
essays for the "Reflector," a quarterly magazine edited by Leigh 
Hunt, —among these are "Garrick and Acting," "Hogarth," and 
" Farewell to Tobacco. " In 1820 the " London Magazine" was estab- 
lished, and Lamb was one of its principal writers ; producing his best 
and most brilliant literary work, to wit, the "Essays of Elia, " the 
first series of whicli were collected and published together in 1823, 
and the last in 1833. Coleridge was a school-mate with Lamb and 
one of his life-long friends. To Coleridge he said, "You first kindled 
in me the love of poetry and beauty and kindness. " Southey, Haz- 
litt, Leigh Hunt, and Procter were among the intimate literary friends 
of Charles and Mary Lamb. 

RUSKIN, John, was born in London in 1819. His 

father was a merchant prince, and he gave his son the most perfect 
education that money could secure. He made art his life study. In 
1843 he published his famous work "Modern Painters," and, subse- 
quently, ' ' Seven Lamps of Architecture. ' ' He has been a writer upon 
all things pertaining to art, and especially art as improving human 
society. 

EMERSON, Ralph Waldo, was born in Boston, 

Mass., May 25, 1803, and died in Concord, Mass., April 27, 1882. His 
father was a minister, and for eight generations, in one line or the 
other of his ancestry, there was a minister in the family. After grad- 
uating at Harvard in 1821, he spent several years in teaching. In 
March 1829, he was ordained as a colleague of Rev. Henry Ware, 
pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston. After three years he was 
dismissed at his own request. In 1833-4, he began his brilliant career 
as a popular lecturer upon scientific, biographical and literary topics. 
From 1835 to 1811, he gave from seven to twelve lectures every winter 
in Boston. In 1841 he published a series of essays, and another series 
in 1844. In 1846 appeared a volume of poems. He was a charming 
writer— rich and rare in expression. He saw rather than reasoned. 
He did not argue but affirmed. He was counted a philosopher and 
called the " Seer, " and also the " Sage of Concord. " But he had no 
defined philosophy. He was looking for, not resting and working 
on clearly perceived basal principles. 

HOLLAND, Josiah Gilbert, an American editor, 
novelist and poet, was born in Belchertown, Mass. , July 24, 1819, and 
died Oct. 12, 1881. He was educated for a physician and was in medi- 
cal practice three years. In 1849 he became associate editor of " The 
Springfield Republican, " and from 1857 to 1866 he was one of the pro- 
prietors. In 1870 he took editorial charge of " Scribner's Monthly " — 
one of the leading publications in America, now published under the 
name of the " Century Magazine. " For many years Dr. Holland was 



12 AUTHORS. 



popular as a lecturer. His chosen name in literature was " Timothy 
Titcomb. " " Bitter Sweet" and " Kathrina" were popular poems. 
In 1873 a complete edition of his poems was published with the title 
" Garnered Sheaves. " His principal works in prose were " Letters 
to the Young," "Life of Lincoln," "Arthur Bonnicastle, " and 
" Nicholas Minturn." He was a felicitous writer, and all through his 
works is the presence of a pure spirit and a good purpose. 

CURTIS, George William, lecturer, editor, author, 

and political reformer, was born in Providence, R. I., Feb. 24, 1824. 
His early education was in a private school at Jamaica Plains, Mass. 
Subsequently he was a year and a half at "Brook Farm" studying 
and working. For a year he was a clerk in New York city. In 1846-50 
he traveled in Europe. Returning to the United States he published 
his first book, " Nile Notes of a Howadji." Soon after he joined the 
editorial staff of "The Tribune" under Horace Greeley. His second 
book was "The Howadji in Syria." Among his later books are "Poti- 
phar Papers," and "Prue and I." In 1852, "Putnam's Monthly" 
was started, and Mr. Curtis was one of the original editors, a position 
which he held till the magazine was discontinued by failure in 1857. 
Curtis was also a partner and sank his private fortune in the enter- 
prise, and then, to save the creditors from loss, ( some like Walter 
Scott, but quite unlike most men ) he devoted sixteen years to paying 
the debts of the concern — and succeeded. He has been a popular 
lyceum lecturer for thirty years, and has often appeared before the 
literary societies at college commencements as Orator or Poet. Since 
1853, he has been a constant contributor to current literature, and for 
several years has been the editor of " Harper's Weekly." In political 
circles he has been a leading advocate of reform in the civil service 
of the nation. 

HOWELLS, William Dean, was born in Martins- 
ville, Ohio, Mar. 1, 1837. He worked in his father's printing office 
twelve years; then was assistant editor of the "Ohio State Journal" 
several years. He was United States consul at Venice for a term. In 
1865 he became assistant editor of the "Nation," and shortly after 
took a like relation to the " Atlantic Monthly; " in July 1871, he was 
chosen sole editor, which position he still retains. Among his publi- 
cations are " Venetian Life, " " Italian Journeys, " " No Love Lost" 
( a poem)," Suburban Sketches, " and " Their Wedding Journey. " 

HARTE, Francis Bret, was born in Albany, N. Y., 
Aug. 25, 1839. At fifteen years of age he went to California and wan- 
dered about for three years, digging for gold, teaching school, etc. 
In 1857 he became a compositor in the " Golden Era" office, and in a 
few years was one of its editors. From 1864 to 1870, he was secretary 
of the United States Branch Mint at San Francisco. Fugitive poems 



AUTHORS. 13 



from his pen during these years were widely copied. Since 1871 he 
has been a frequent contributor to the " Atlantic. " " Plain Language 
from Truthful James, or The Heathen Chinee" gave him great fame. 
Among his other successful ventures in literature are " Luck of Roar- 
ing Camp," and " Mrs. Skagg's Husbands. " 

CLEMENS, Samuel L. ("Mark Twain"), an Ameri- 
can humorist, was born in Missouri, Nov. 30, 1835. At thirteen years 
of age he was in the "Courier" printing office at Hannibal, Mo. At 
twenty he was learning to be a pilot from St. Louis to New Orleans, 
and at one time was licensed and had a situation at $250 a month. 
His pseudonym is a memento of those steamboat experiences — 
"mark twain" being the leadman's term to signify two fathoms of 
water. In 1861 he went to Nevada ; worked in the mines ; shoveled 
quartz one week for $10; for ten days was worth $1,000,000, and, 
through heedlessness, lost it all. He became editor of the "Enter- 
prise" in Virginia City in 1862. In 1867 he published in New York, 
" Jumping Frog, and Other Sketches. " The same year he was one 
of a large company that visited Egypt and the Holy Land, and soon 
after appeared " Innocents Abroad. " In 1872 he published " Rough- 
ing It, " of which 91,000 copies were sold in nine months. 

VERNE, Jules, a French author, was born in Nantes, 
Feb. 8, 1828. He studied law, but literature suited him better, and he 
soon took to writing plays and operatic pieces. In 1863 he began to 
publish romantic stories, somewhat after the Munchausen style, but 
there is much and valuable scientific instruction throughout his pages. 
"Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea," "From Earth to the 
Moon," "Around the World in Eighty Days, " and "Servadac" are 
some of his best works. Not only the boys and girls, but staid and 
sober grown-up children find pure pleasure and stores of knowledge 
in reading Verne. 

MARTINEAU, Harriet, an English author, was born 

June 12, 1802, and died June 27, 1876. For more than half a century 
Miss Martineau was one of the most constant and prolific writers — 
no other woman of this nineteenth century has written upon so many 
and various subjects. In novels she wrote " Deerbrook " and " The 
Hour and the Man. " For children she wrote " Crofton Boys " and 
"The Playfellow." She wrote hymns, biography, and histoiy. She 
wrote upon theological topics and politics and almost every question 
of practical interest. " Poor -Law and Paupers," " The Factory Con- 
troversy, " "British Rule in India," "England and Her Soldiers," 
and "Household Education" were subjects common to her pen. 

STOWE, Harriet Beecher — a sister of Rev. Henry 

Ward Beecher,— was born in Litchfield, Conn., Jan. 14, 1812. Her 
husband, Rev. C. E. Stowe, was for many years an eminent minister 



14 POETS. 



and theological teacher in the Congregational church. Mrs. Stowe 
has written many books, and very much for the newspapers and 
periodicals of the day. Several of her books are vivid pen pictures 
of early days in New England. "May Flower, or Sketches of the De- 
scendants of the Pilgrims," "Minister's Wooing," and "Old Town 
Folks " are of this class After a sojourn in Europe she gave to the 
public " Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands. " No other woman ever 
had more readers— and, excepting the author of "Pilgrim's Pro- 
gress," no man ever had more readers. The book which secures Mrs. 
Stowe such a place in literature is "Uncle Tom's Cabin" — the thrilling 
story of slave life in the United States, and which was one of the most 
effective agencies in developing and crystallizing antislavery senti- 
ments throughout the " Free States. " It first appeared as a serial in 
the "National Era"— an antislavery paper printed at Washington. 
The next year, 1852, it was put into book form in two volumes. In 
four years 313,000 copies were sold in the United States, and probably 
a larger number in Great Britain. In ten years it had appeared in 
thirty-seven different translations in seventeen different languages of 
the continent of Europe. 

LIPPINCOTT, Sara Jane ("Grace Greenwood"), an 

American author, was born in Pompey , Onondaga Co., N. Y., Sept. 
23, 1823. Much of her childhood was spent in Rochester, N. Y. Her 
maiden name was Clarke. She married Leander K. Lippincott of 
Philadelphia in 1853. She wrote and published some poetry while 
quite young. Her first prose writing appeared in the " New York 
Mirror" in 1844, under the nom deplume of "Grace Greenwood," 
which has become her name in literature. Since 1850 she has pub- 
lished about a score of books, all readable, enjoyable, and instructive. 
Among these are "Greenwood Leaves," "Haps and Mishaps of a 
Tour in Europe," "Recollections of my Childhood, " "Stories and 
Legends of Travel, " " New Life inJNew Lands, " and " Stories from 
Famous Ballads. " Mrs. Lippincott has appeared extensively upon 
the platform as a lecturer and dramatic reader, but she finds her 
chief pleasure in the exercise of her pen. No woman in America 
writes purer or more faultless English, and her articles in the pa- 
pers—which are from time to time collected in permanent form — 
are valuable contributions to current literature. 



POETS. 

CHAUCER, Geoffrey, called "The Father of Eng- 
lish Poetry, " was born in 1328, and died in London, Oct. 25, 1400. 
Nothing is certainly known of his early life. When about forty years 
of age he appears in the governmental service under Edward III. 



POETS. 15 

and for many years he was employed in various important diplomatic, 
ami other trusts. He was an active sympathizer with Wycliffe, and 
had to flee the country. He did not give much attention to literature 
till late in life. His most popular small poem was "Flower and Leaf." 
The best and most durable monument of his genius is " Canterbury 
Tales." The poet brings together at a public house twenty -nine pil- 
grims on their way to the tomb of Thomas a Becket, all from different 
walks in life, who agree to travel in company, and each to tell a story 
during their pilgrimage, and the one telling the best story to have a 
supper at the expense of the rest. Those " Tales" are invaluable to 
the student of English history— being vivid pictures of English life 
and customs in the fourteenth century. Chaucer was the first poet 
buried in Westminster Abbey. 

SHAKSPEARE, William, was born in Stratford- 
upon-Avon in April, 1564, and died there April 23, 1616. His father 
"held many civil offices though he could not write his name. All that 
is known of Shakspeare's life can be written in a few lines, while the 
story of his u Works " would make a library. At the age of eighteen 
he married a woman eight years older than himself. Three children 
were born to them. Leaving his family at Stratford, he went to Lon- 
don when about the age of twenty -two and became a play-actor. In 
three years he was in the front rank of play -writers. It is probable 
that he acquired a competence, if not a fortune. He is supposed to 
have returned to his birthplace to live a few years before his death. 
A flat stone covers his grave on the north side of the chancel of Strat- 
ford church with this inscription, said to have been prepared by 

himself, — 

" Good frend for Iesus sake forbeare 
To digg the dust encloased heare: 
Blest be y e man y* spares thes stones, 
And curst be lie y* moves my bones. " 

Shakspeare's dramas made obsolete all that had been written before 
his day. He is easily the foremost of all English authors. His sym- 
pathy is the most universal, his imagintion the most plastic, his dic- 
tion the most expressive ever given to any uninspired writer. He is 
first in all literature — unapproached and seemingly unapproachable. 

MILTON, John, an eminent English political writer 
and poet, was born in London, Dec. 9, 1608, and died there Nov. 8, 
1674. His father became a Puritan in early life, and was disinherited. 
The son's home training bore ample fruit in later years. His early 
education was very careful and thorough. At seventeen he wrote 
Latin in prose and verse, and knew Greek and Hebrew. Then seven 
years were spent in Cambridge University, followed by five years of 
diligent study at home. In this period he wrote " L' Allegro," " Co- 
mus," "Lycidas," and others of his shorter poems. The next twenty 



16 POETS. 



7 
years, or from 1640 to 1660, he was chiefly employed in the political 
turmoils of the times of Charles I., Cromwell, and Charles II. He 
took sides against royalty, and was the foremost literary champion 
of English liberty. During the Protectorate (1653-1658) he was Crom- 
well's Secretary of State. Before he was forty -six years old he 
became totally blind. His first marriage proved so unhappy that he 
persuaded himself to believe, and ever afterward contended, that in- 
compatibility was just ground for divorce. He sought divorce but 
could not secure it. His second wife, of whom he wrote 

"Love, goodness, sweetness, in her person shined," 

lived less than a year. His third marriage was arranged by friends 
in their pity for him because of the unkindness of his three daugh- 
ters. When Charles II. came to the throne in 1660, Milton sought 
safety in concealment until royal clemency pardoned the rebels. In 
poverty and blindness and domestic infelicity and public obloquy he 
betook himself to c { a work which posterity should not willingly let 
die, " and the result was " Paradise Lost"— the greatest epic in the 
English language, and which places Milton second only to Shaks- 
peare in the great constellation of English poets. Its composition 
was the work of seven years. With difficulty a publisher was found, 
and then only a pittance was realized by the author. He was Unita- 
rian in belief, but he belonged to no religious communion, attended 
no church, .and had no prayers in his house. 

DRYDEN, John, was born Aug. 9, 1631, and died May 
1, 1700. His father was a magistrate under Cromwell, but the son 
seemed to inherit no great strength of character. In politics he be- 
came a royalist, and in religion a Papist. He was educated at 
Cambridge University. In 1688, partly as a reward for his royalist 
sympathies, he was made poet laureate. In 1694-7 he published a 
translation of tf Virgil's iEneid, " upon which chiefly rests his poeti- 
cal fame. "Alexander's Feast" is his masterpiece in lyric poetry. 
In political satire, whether in prose or poetry, Dryden is yet without 
a rival. He was the chief English poet of his day, but most of his 
writing was ephemeral in its character and object. His aim was not 
high and holy like Milton's, his character was not so inwrought with 
principle, and his fame does not brighten with the passing of time. 
The times in which he lived were not very heroic, and he conformed 
to the times. 

POPE, Alexander, was born in London, May 22, 
1688, and died May 30, 1744. He attended no school after he was 
twelve years of age. He taught himself French, Latin, and Greek by 
means of translations. He educated himself and displayed the abili- 
ty, and also the arrogance ( too common) of ,f self-made men. " He 
ranked well as a poet, and by the philosophical element in most of his 



POETS. 17 

poetry his works were a great educating force for a hundred years. 
He was associated with Addison in writing for the " Spectator. ' ' To- 
gether with his literary and personal friend. Dean Swift, he published 
one or more volumes of " Miscellanies. " He was deformed in body, 
sickly in constitution, impulsive, Irritable, censorious, impatient of 
criticism, and often in a quarrel with other writers. He called them 
dunces who criticised his productions, and his " Dunciad" was a se- 
vere satire upon them. At twelve years of age he wrote " Ode to 
Solitude "—a poem that would have been creditable in mature years. 
The " Rape of the Lock, " " Moral Essays, " " Essay on Man, " and 
a translation of Homer's " Iliad " were among his chief works. Dry- 
den was his model and ideal, but he improved upon his master. Pope 
wrote many things that this age does not care for. He was not the 
poet of nature so much as of art, yet no other writer, except Shaks- 
peare, has enriched the English language with so many apt and quot- 
able sentences. That one lyric, 

'• Vital spark of heavenly flame, " 
found in many collections of hymns, places its author in the front 
ranks of lyric poets. 

YOUNG, Edward, an English poet, was born in 1664, 
and died April 12, 1765. He was educated at Oxford University, and 
studied law, but did not practice his profession. At forty -three years 
of age he took orders, and became one of the king's chaplains. A 
tragedy, "The Revenge," and "The Love of Fame," and "Night 
Thoughts " were his principal contributions to poetic literature. This 
last (and the best) was written when the poet was in the maturity of 
years and experience, past sixty, and when death had taken away his 
wife and both his children. 

THOMSON, James, was born in Scotland, Sept. 11, 
1700, and died Aug. 27, 1748. He was educated in the University of 
Edinburgh. He is said to have been gross in appearance, and indolent 
in disposition. He wrote "Liberty," "Castle of Indolence," and a 
drama, "Tancred and Sigismunda. " His chief work was "The 
Seasons," which appeared in 1730, — "Winter, " "Summer," and 
" Spring" having appeared in 1726, 1727, and 1728, respectively. It 
was in blank verse, and rich in descriptions of nature. Coleridge 
said, "The love of nature seems to have led Thomson to a cheerful 
religion, and a gloomy religion to have led Cowper to a love of na- 
ture." 

GRAY, Thomas, an English poet, was born in London, 
Dec. 26, 1716, and died July 30, 1771. His parents became estranged 
from each other, and his mother bore the heavy burden of his educa- 
tion at Eton and Cambridge. He lived among books and scholars — 
was too reserved and retiring for society or public life. Not only a 



18 POETS. 



poet, but he was also a botanist, geologist, architect, and antiquary. 
He was not a prolific writer, but his few pages place him among the 
few most gifted poets. His " Ode to Adversity " and " Ode to Eton 
College" made him a favorite with the reading public of his day. 
Gray's "Elegy written in a Country Church -Yard " is likely to have a 
place in all collections of choicest English verse. One line— 

"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn," 

has been pronounced the most poetic in all English literature. 

GOLDSMITH, Oliver, was a native of Ireland, born 
Nov. 10, 1728. His father was a clergyman— too poor to educate his 
son— and Oliver became a charity student in Trinity College, Dublin. 
He was an unsteady youth, always in debt and often in difficulty be- 
cause of his boon companionships. At twenty-eight years of age he 
had studied some for church orders and been rejected; had been 
helped to become a law student and gambled away the money given 
him; and had wandered a year on the Continent, trudging on foot 
through parts of Flanders, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, 
often subsisting on the bounty of the peasants, and returning the 
obligation of a night's lodging, or a meal, by playing on the llute, 
which he carried with him as his stock in trade. By this time he was 
in London penniless and friendless. Three years later he published 
" Citizen of the World" which secured him funds and friends. He 
wab a voluminous writer for some fifteen years. History, biography, 
fiction, comedy, and poetry, each and all employed his very facile pen. 
"The Traveller," founded on his adventurous wanderings, and for 
which he only received twenty guineas, passed through nine editions 
during his life. For the " Vicar of Wakefield, " which ran through 
three editions in one year, he was paid sixty pounds. The "Deserted 
Village " brought him one hundred pounds, and in less than four 
months from the time it was given to the public five editions had been 
published. This poem is rich in description and pathos, and Goethe, 
the German poet, hailed it with delight. "She Stoops to Conquer, " 
his second comedy, was highly profitable and so great was the suc- 
cess of this, that on the tenth night it was played by royal command. 
In conversation he was unworthy his fame as a writer— the right word 
never came to him. "If you gave him back a shilling, he'd say, 
4 Why, it's as good a shilling as ever was fcorw.'" [He would have 
written coined. ] Among the most readable and reliable biographies of 
Goldsmith is that written by Washington Irving. Goldsmith died 
April 4, 1774, in his forty-sixth year, £2000 in debt — "Was ever poet 
so trusted before ! " exclaimed Johnson. Doubtless a different mode 
of living would have given him a longer life. At the announcement 
of his death, Burke burst into tears, and Sir Joshua Reynolds, who 
had never been known to suspend his affairs for any distress, laid 



POETS. 19 

down his brush and left his studio. " No man, " again remarks John- 
son, "was wiser when he had a pen in his hand, or more foolish 
when he had not. " 

BURNS, Robert, was another of the most gifted chil- 
dren of song who died too young. He was horn near Ayr in Scotland, 
Jan. 25, 1759, and died July 21, 1796 — at the age of thirty-seven years 
and six months. His parents were Scottish peasants, and his educa- 
tion only such as their poverty afforded. The Bible, Life of Hannibal, 
History of Sir Wm. Wallace, and a Collection of Prose and Verse were 
the books read in his youth. He was a farmer, and is frequently 
called " The Ayrshire Plowman. " He was a man of strong passions 
but of weak will, and so was easily the victim of temptations. He 
was Scotland's great song -writer— having "an inspiration for every 
fancy, a muse for every mood" — one of the very first of lyric poets. 
His poetry appeals to the deepest and purest emotions of the heart. 
" Holy Willie's Prayer, " " Tarn O'Shanter, " " Jolly Beggars, " and 
"Cotter's Saturday Night" are specimens of his work. The centenary 
of his birth was celebrated in many villages and cities of Great Britain, 
British Columbia, India, and the United States. 

COWPER, William, was born in Hertfordshire, Eng- 
land, Nov. 26, 1731, and died April 25, 1800— just a century later than 
Dryden in the year of his birth, and likewise in the year of his death. 
Southey called him " the most popular poet of his generation, and the 
best English letter -writer ." He was a lineal decendant of an English 
king. He studied for the legal profession, and was admitted to the 
bar. At thirty-two years of age he was appointed reading clerk to the 
committees of the House of Lords, but his timidity was such that he 
attempted suicide rather than meet the public duties of his office. He 
actually became insane and went to an asylum for a season, and at 
intervals through life he was mentally alienated. He became an au- 
thor when fifty years old— first producing a collection of religious 
songs known as the " Olney Hymns." "The Task" was the most 
elaborate of Cowper's poems. He also brought out a translation of 
Homer that won great praise. His last poem was " The Castaway"— 
a picture of his own sad fate as he morbidly saw it. His hymns are 
among the best sung to-day in all English speaking churches. One 
humorous ballad, " John Gilpin, " has made millions laugh. 

SCHILLER, Johann Christoph Friedrich yon, a 

German poet, was born in Wurtemberg, Nov. 10, 1759, and died in 
Weimar, May 9, 1805. At twenty-one years of age he was an army 
surgeon. He had for several years been at work upon a tragedy, 
"The Robber," which he published soon after joining the army. The 
Duke ordered Schiller to attend to his professional work and let au- 
thorship alone, but the order did not prevent the author's preparing 



20 POETS. 



his play for the stage. He was arrested and imprisoned for stealthily 
witnessing the first performance of his play. Escaping from prison 
he went to Baden, and, finding friends and safety, he devoted himself 
to literature— writing much in prose and verse, and always writing- 
well. In 1789 he became Professor of History at Jena, and two years 
later finished the cc History of the Thirty Years War, " which Carlyle 
said was the best historical performance that Germany could boast 
of. In 1799 he published his great drama, " Wallenstein,' '— the product 
of seven years labor. In 1804 came another drama from his pen, 
" Wilhelm Tell." Goethe was his personal friend and fellow worker 
in literature for years. The centennial of his birth led to the erection 
of several monuments in his honor in Germany and elsewhere. 

GOETHE, Johann Wolfgang von, "the greatest 

modern poet of Germany, and the patriarch of German literature," 
was born in Frankfort-on-the-Main, Aug. 28, 1749, and died in Wei- 
mar, Mar. 22, 1832. Before he was ten years old he wrote several 
languages, meditated poems, invented stories, and had considerable 
familiarity with works of art. He was educated at Leipsic and Stras- 
burg. At twenty -three years of age he began the practice of law, 
but literature drew him away from law as it also drew Schiller away 
from surgery. "The Sorrows of Werther, " published by Goethe at 
twenty-five years of age, was for a time the great literary sensation 
of Germany — the common people were carried away with it, and the 
highly educated praised it as a profound philosophical romance. His 
songs and ballads and short stories and letters are numerous. A 
novel, " Wilhelm Meister, " and the dramas, " Torquato Tasso " and 
"Egmont" were worthy of this prince of letters. His chief work and 
greatest poem is "Faust. " On his last birthday a seal, with an in- 
scription from one of his own poems, Ohne Hast, o7me Hast, was sent 
nimby fifteen English authors — Wordsworth, Scott, Southey, Car- 
lyle, and others. His last words were " More Light. " 

SHELLEY, Percy Bysshe, an English poet, was born 

near Horsham in England, Aug. 4, 1792, and was drowned in the bay 
of Spezia, Italy, July 8, 1822. Unlike many of his tuneful brethren 
Shelley was born in a wealthy family, but like some other noted poets 
his life was almost all a discord. Unfortunately he became a follower 
of Hume and the French philosophers of- his day, and " at seventeen 
years of age, " says De Quincy, " he was satisfied that atheism is the 
sheet anchor of the world. " For his " Defence of Atheism," pub- 
lished and insultingly addressed to the heads of the college, he was 
expelled. His first marriage was ill advised — his wife drowned her- 
self, and Shelley was refused the care of his two children on the 
ground of his immorality and atheism. Upon this he went to the 
Continent to live. ' ' Queen Mab, " ' ' Adonais " (in memory of Keats), 



POETS. 21 



" Revolt of Islam, " " Prometheus Unbomid, " and '« The Cenci" are 
among his best efforts. When his body was washed ashore a volume 
of Keats' poetry was found open in his coat pocket. Lord Byron and 
Leigh Hunt were his personal and literary friends, and were both in 
Italy when his death occurred, and were present to witness the burn- 
ing of his body on a funeral pile. The ashes were deposited in a 
Protestant cemetery at Rome near the grave of Keats. 

BYRON, George Gordon, born in London, Jan. 22, 

1788, was one of the most brilliant of English poets, but his career was 
one of the briefest and most base in all the annals of literary men. 
Some of his best poetiy is marred by his irreligious, immoral, and 
misanthropic tone. His father was so dissipated as to be called " Mad 
Jack Byron, " and his mother was an inferior woman in intellect and 
violent in temper, with whom her son could not live in peace. At ten 
years of age he became heir to the title and estates of an uncle. In 
due time he took his seat in the House of Lords, and made a few 
speeches— one of which attracted considerable attention. From a 
child he was an omniverous reader of history and fiction. " Childe 
Harold," published in 1812, made him a literary celebrity. "The 
Giaour," "Bride of Abydos, " " Ode to Venice, " '-Werner," and 
"Don Juan" were among his more important productions. His 
smaller poems were hundreds in number. His last years were dark 
and desolate. Though rich and holding high rank and full of poetic 
fire, his bad life made him an outcast. He went to Greece and took 
up arms in defence of the independence of Greece, and there died 
April 9, 1S24. 

COLERIDGE, Samuel Taylor, an English poet and 

philosopher, was born Oct. 21, 1772 and died July 25, 1834. A son of a 
Vicar, and left a penniless orphan at nine years of age, he was edu- 
cated by charity. He had a singular mind, and lived a singular life. 
While a youth his pleasure was in abstract speculations — history, 
romance, and poetry being insipid to him. He had no worldly wis- 
dom or ambition. He left college, the course but half completed, and 
wandered about London a day or two ; gave his last penny to a beg- 
gar, and enlisted as a soldier. After four months in the service he 
was discharged. He and Southey married sisters. He had no prac- 
tical genius, and seems to have been supported by friends for years. 
When about twenty -five years of age he wrote his best poetry— 
"Christabel, " "Ancient Mariner," and "Ode to the Departing 
Year. " In 1798 he was invited to take a Unitarian parish, and he 
preached a remarkable " trial sermon"— but he did not preach again. 
In company with Wordsworth he visited Germany, where he became 
a royalist instead of a republican, a Church of England man instead 
of a Unitarian. When about thirty years of age he contracted the 



22 POETS. 

habit of using opium, and for fifteen years the record of his life is a 
sad history. His dejection and utter prostration during these years 
can only be described by his own letters. In 181G he took up his abode 
with Mr. Gillman, and there made his home till he died. With the 
assistance of tins warm friend he made tremendous efforts to relin- 
quish his opium habit — and succeeded, but it left him shattered in 
bodily health. While the rays of his splendid genius may not have 
dimmed with his declining years, his pen could not elaborate the 
great subjects which he had contemplated. . He said of himself, "I 
can think with all my ordinary vigor in the midst of pain, but I am 
beset with the most wretched and unmanning reluctance and shrink- 
ing from action. I could not upon such occasions take the pen in 
hand to write down my thoughts for all the wide world. " He was 
so conscious of his own failings that he desired his life to be written, 
not as an example to other men, but as a warning. When his facility 
in writing failed he became one of the greatest of talkers, and his 
conversation was a great stimulant to other minds. His prose works 
are " Table Talk," " Biographia Literaria," and "Aids to Reflection." 
His philosophy has largely revolutionized the thinking of the world. 
He enthroned reason which seizes necessary truths directly, and 
whose intuitions are certain and authoritative. Wordsworth said of 
him, "I have seen many wonderful things performed by Cuvier, 
Davy, Scott, and others, but the only wonderful man I ever saw is 
Coleridge. " 

SOUTHEY, Robert, one of the most prolific of writers, 
one of the "Lake Poets, " an intimate friend of Scott, Coleridge, and 
Wordsworth, was born in Bristol, England, Aug. 12, 1774, and died 
March 21, 1843. His whole life was devoted to literature. He is said 
to have burned more verses between his twentieth and thirtieth year 
than he ever published. He probably wrote too much. His works 
would fill not less than a hundred volumes. Through intense and too 
continuous labor his rare powers of mind failed, and, like Dean Swift, 
his last years were a complete mental blank. In 1813 he was made 
poet laureate. Southey alone, among all the poets, has ventured to 
illustrate in his poems the different characters, customs, and manners 
of nations. "Joan of Arc' ' is an English and French story— * ' Thala- 
ba" is Arabian — " Curse of Kehama " is Indian — " Madoc, " Welsh 
and American — and ' ' Roderic, ' ' Spanish and Moorish. His biogra- 
phies of Nelson, Cowper, and Wesley are among his best works in 
prose. 

KEATS, John, was born in London, Oct. 29, 1796, 
and died in Rome, Feb. 27, 1821. Consumption marked him early for 
its own. He lived and wrought in the fields of poesy only long enough 
to indicate rare poetic gifts. "Endymion," "Eve of St. Agnes," 



POETS. 23 



"Ode to a Nightingale," and "Lamia" are rich in imagery and 
classical learning. In the Protestant cemetery at Rome, near where 
the ashes of his friend Shelley are laid, is the tomb of Keats with this 
inscription dictated by himself — 

"Here lies one whose name was writ in water." 

HOOD, Thomas, a noted humorous poet, was born in 

London, May 23, 1798, and died there May 3, 1845. His parentage was 
Scotch. His history is but a record of suffering and trouble. His 
happy nature, however, sent a few stray gleams of sunshine along 
his pathway to brighten the dark outlines of his life. He married at 
the age of twenty-six, and the union was a singularly happy one. 
Many authors, especially poets, have been unfortunate in their mar- 
riages; as, Socrates, Milton, Byron, Shelley, and others; but Hood's 
case was a bright exception. " Whims and Oddities, " in 1826, gave 
him an important place in literature. In 1835, by the failure of a firm, 
he became involved in debt. He resisted the advice of friends to have 
recourse to the bankrupt law, and, emulating the example of another 
illustrious Scotchman, determined to wipe out his debts with his pen. 
His last and best poems were written after he lay down to die. They 
are "Bridge of Sighs," "Lay of the Laborer," and "Song of the 
Shirt." His wit and sarcasm were always genial and well applied. 
He voiced the wants and the hardships of the overworked and ill-paid 
poor. 

POE, Edgar Allan, a brilliant but erratic genius, 
an author whose style was most weird and highly rhetorical, was 
born in Boston, Jan. 19, 1809, and died in Baltimore, Oct. 7, 1849. 
His parents lived the wandering life of actors, and both died while 
their three children were quite young. Edgar was adopted by John 
Allan, a wealthy citizen of Richmond, Va., who educated him with 
great care. At seventeen years of age he entered the University of 
Virginia, where he ranked first in his class ; but he left college at the 
end of one year, deeply involved in debts contracted by gaming. 
Subsequently his foster-father secured him a cadetship at West Point, 
but he was expelled, in March 1831, for neglect of studies and dissipa- 
tion. Returning to Richmond, he was again received in a fatherly 
way by Mr. Allan, but his conduct in the family soon led to his ex- 
clusion from the house altogether, and he was not mentioned in his 
foster-father's will. In 1833 a Baltimore publisher offered a prize of 
$100 for a poem, and a like prize for a story in prose. Poe won both 
prizes, and found thereby a friend— and also work as the editor of 
the " Southern Literary Messenger. " But he soon quarreled with his 
friend and lost his work. After this he wrote for different pub- 
lishers — not long for any one. In 1845 he published ' ' The Raven "— 
wonderful for its beauty of rhythm and its almost unearthly sadness. 



24 POETS. 

Soon after appeared "The Bells" — equally wonderful for the per- 
fection of its harmony — its exquisite adaptation of sound to sense. 
He wrote several stories of a high order; as, " Gold Bug, " " Fall of 
the House of Usher, " and " Descent into the Maelstrom. " His wife 
died in 1848. In the next year, while on his way through Baltimore 
to New York to make preparations for a second marriage, he met 
several old companions, and the next morning was found on the 
streets in delirium, and was taken to a hospital where he died in a 
few hours. Twenty -six years later (1875) the school-teachers of 
Baltimore placed a monument at his grave. 

WORDSWORTH, William, foremost of the "Lake 

Poets," called "the English Bryant " as Bryant is called " the Ameri- 
can Wordsworth, ' ' was born April 7, 1770, and died at Rydal Mount, 
April 23, 1850 — the two hundred and thirty -fourth anniversary of 
Shakspeare's death. His life was uneventful. He was eminently the 
poet of nature. By many he is ranked as second only to Milton. 
Coleridge, Scott, and Southey were his personal friends. In 1843 he 
was appointed poet laureate to succeed Southey. His principal work 
is ' ' The Excursion. ' ' Among the best of his shorter poems are ' ' Ode 
to Immortality, " " Ode to Duty, " and "We are Seven. " 

PAYNE, John Howard, an American dramatist, was 

born in New York, June 9, 1792. At thirteen years of age, while a 
clerk in a counting room, he was editing a weekly journal. Later, 
while a student in Union College, he published a periodical. At seven- 
teen years of age he became an actor in Park Theater, New York. 
A few years later he went to England where he spent twenty years 
with varied success as actor, manager, and playwright. "Brutus" 
still holds possession of the English stage. " Clari" contained that 
song, "Home, Sweet Home," which ranks this author's name with 
the truest of poets. He returned to the United States in 1832. In 1841 
he was appointed American Consul at Tunis, where he died April 10, 
1852. His remains were brought to his native land in 1883 and buried 
in Oak Hill Cemetery, Georgetown, D. C. 

MOORE, Thomas, the great Irish song-writer, was 
born in Dublin, May 28, 1779, and died Feb. 25, 1852. At fourteen 
years of age he was contributing short poems for a Dublin magazine. 
His "Irish Melodies " have been peerless in popularity in the English 
language. They were written for the old tunes so common and popu- 
lar in song-loving Ireland. His most considerable work was "Lalla 
Hookh"— a series of four Eastern stories. This poem has passed 
through numberless editions, and has been translated into Persian. 
In prose his chief work was "Notices of the Life of Lord Byron." 
Byron had entrusted his autobiography with Moore to be published 



POETS. 



after his death. Among his other works were " Fudge Family in 
Paris," "Rhymes on the Road," "Life of Sheridan," and "History 
of Ireland." His later years were clouded by domestic grief, and at 
the last he was like Swift and Southey — an imbecile. 

HUNT, James Henry Leigh, was born in Southgate, 

England, Oct. 19, 1784, and died Aug. 2S, 1859. His father was a West 
Indian, and his mother was an American woman. At the opening of 
the Revolutionary war they were living in Philadelphia. Their Brit- 
ish sympathies made it needful for them to leave the colonies, and 
make their home in England. Leigh Hunt was an author while 
yet a boy, publishing a volume of poems when seventeen years of age. 
At twenty -four years of age he and his brother began the publication 
of the "Examiner" which Leigh edited many years, and made it ex- 
ceedingly popular. It was liberal and fearless in politics. Three 
times the Hunts were prosecuted by the government; first, for the 
words, "Of all monarehs, indeed, since the revolution, the successor 
of George III. will have the finest opportunity of becoming nobly 
popular;" second, for denouncing flogging in the army; third, when 
a fashionable paper called the prince regent an Adonis, for adding 
" a fat Adonis of fifty." In the last prosecution they were fined £500, 
and sentenced to two years imprisonment. They could have been 
released any day by promising to change the tone of the paper. They 
chose imprisonment and continued the bold editorials. Friends had 
free access to them in prison, and their room was made for the time 
the abode of every pure delight — books and periodicals and music 
and all that they might wish being at their command. Here Leigh was 
visited by Byron, Moore, Lamb, Shelley, and Keats. While in prison 
he wrote some of his best poems; as, "The Feast of the Poets," 
" The Descent of Liberty," and "The Story of Rimini." A few years 
later he went to Italy by invitation of Byron and Shelley, to assist 
them in editing the " Liberal." Shelley's death occurred soon after 
Hunt's arrival in Pisa, and a few months sufficed to show that Byron 
and Hunt could not work together. His later years were wholly de- 
voted to writing books; such as, " Captain Sword and Captain Pen" 
(a satire against war), "Sir Ralph Esiier," "The Legend of Flor- 
ence," " Men, Women, and Books," and " Religion of the Heart." 

HALLECK, Fitz-Greene, an American poet, was 
born at Guilford, Conn., July 8, 1790, and died Nov. 17, 1867. Peter 
Halleck, one of thirteen Pilgrim Fathers who landed at Xew Haven, 
Conn, in 1640, was bis paternal ancestor. His mother was Mary Eliot 
a descendant of John Eliot, " the apostle of the Indians," who landed 
in Boston, Mass. in 1631. Halleck was a business man in New York 
City many years — for sixteen years in the employ of John Jacob 
Astor, by whom he was named as one of the original trustees of the 



26 POETS. 



Astor Library. By the will of Mr. Astor he received an annuity of 
$200, and, being thus "made rich with forty pounds a year," here- 
turned to his native town in 1849. He wrote poems in his boyhood. In 
1819 he wrote his longest poem, "Fanny," a satire upon the follies 
and fashions and public characters of the day. It was very popular. 
In later years he wrote "Alnwick Castle," "Burns," and "Marco 
Bozzaris." Tnis last is one of the finest heroic odes in our language. 
Bryant said of the poem " Burns," " I am not sure that these verses 
are not the finest in which one poet ever celebrated another." A full 
length bronze statue of Halleck adorns Central Park, New York 
City. 

WILLIS, Nathaniel Parker, was born in Portland, 

Me., Jan. 20, 1806, and died at Idlewild near Newburgh, N. Y., Jan. 
21, 1867. He graduated at Yale College in 1827. While a college stu- 
dent he published a series of "Scriptural Sketches" inverse. His 
whole life was spent in literature — editing and publishing magazines, 
and writing volumes of prose and verse. In 1846 he and Geo. P. Morris 
established the "Home Journal," to which Willis contributed till his 
death. He was the author of twenty- seven volumes of poetry and 
prose. His best poetry is found in ' ' Death of Absalom," " Hagar in 
the Wilderness," and other Biblical subjects. In prose his best writing 
is found in "Letters from under a Bridge," "People I have Met," 
"Life Here and There," and "Famous Persons and Places." 

ALDKICH, Thomas Bailey, lyric poet and novelist, 

was born in Portsmouth, N. H., Nov. 11, 1836. While employed in a 
New York counting room he began to write verses for the papers. 
At nineteen years of age he published a volume — " The Bells." His 
most popular poem was " Babie Bell," published in 1856. In the same 
year he became associated with N. P. Willis and Geo. P. Morris on 
the staff of the "Home Journal." He was the chief editor of "Every 
Saturday " from its foundation. His principal works are " The Story 
of a Bad Boy," " Marjorie Daw and other People," and " Prudence 
Palfrey." In poetry, besides " Babie Bell," "The Face against the 
Pane" and "Friar Jerome's Beautiful Book" are charming pro- 
ductions. 

BULWER-LYTTON, Edward Robert ("Owen Mere- 
dith"), an English poet and the only son of Edward George Bulwer- 
Lytton the novelist, was born Nov. 8, 1831. At eighteen years of age 
he was private Secretary to his uncle, Sir Henry Bulwer, than (1849) 
Minister at Washington. He continued in the English diplomatic 
service in various countries till 1876, when lie was appointed Governor 
General of India. His first poems were published in London in 1856 
with this title, " Clytemnestra, and other Minor Poems." His later 
works are " The Wanderer, a Collection of Poems in Many Lands," 



POETS. 27 

" Serbske Pesme" (a collection of Servian songs), "The Ring of 
Amasis" (a prose romance), '• Orval, or the Fool of Time" (a dra- 
matic poem), and "Chronicles and Characters." He succeeded to 
the title of Earl on the death of his father in 1873. 

BRYANT, William Cullen, a lineal descendant of 

John Alden, was born in Cummington, Mass., 2\ov. 3, 1794, and died 
in New York City, June 12, 1878. He was admitted to the bar at 
twenty-one years of age, and soon took high rank in the courts ; 
but, inclining to literature rather than litigation, he took work on the 
"Evening Post" in 1S26, and, a few years later, had exclusive control 
of that paper. He was the principal owner and chief editor of the 
paper about a half century. Before he was ten years old he was 
writing verses for the county paper. At nineteen he wrote " Thana- 
topsis." His last poem, " The Elood of Years," was written when he 
was eighty -two years of age. Among other excellent poems from his 
pen are "Death of the Flowers," ' ' Song of the Sower," and " Wait- 
ing at the Gate." His translations of the "Iliad" and "Odyssey" 
are the best in the English language. Bryant was a minute observer 
of nature, a devout, God-fearing man who ardently loved the right, 
and desired all best things for his fellow men — one of America's 
most regal men. Bryant was often called upon for public addresses 
in memory of notable men in literature. It was a " labor of love " for 
him to speak of Cooper and Irving, and to make the speeches when 
statues of Morse and Shakspeare and Scott and Halleck were un- 
veiled. His last public appearance was May 29, 1878, in an address at 
the unveiling of a statue of Mazzini in Central Park. 

LONGFELLOW, Henry Wads worth, one of Ameri- 
ca's three foremost poets, was bom in Portland, Me., Feb. 27, 1807, 
and died in Cambridge, Mass., Mar. 24, 1882. He was a descendant 
of John Alden, of the "Mayflower," who found a wife for himself 
rather than for another as the poet has so pleasantly told in the 
"Courtship of Miles Standish." He graduated at Bowdoin College 
in his nineteenth year, and, the next year, accepted the professorship 
of modern languages and literature in his alma mater. In 1835 he 
accepted a similar chair in Harvard College and removed to Cam- 
bridge, and there lived and died in the house once occupied by Wash- 
ington. He was a Professor in Harvard College nineteen years. After 
1854 he lived in the quiet and comfort of literary leisure. While a 
college student he wrote such poems as "Woods in Winter" and 
" Sunrise on the Hills." Longfellow wrote much and always wrote 
well. His poems have been published in various editions. Perhaps 
no American author is better known and more read in England. 
Among his many popular poems are "Evangeline," "The Day is 



28 POETS. 



Done," "Hiawatha," " Hanging of the Crane," and "Morituri Salu- 
tamus." This last was written for the semi-centennial reunion of the 
Bowdoin class of 1825. His translation of " Dante" (3 vols. 1867-70) 
is remarkable for fidelity to the original. On the day that Long- 
fellow was taken ill, «ix days only before his death, three school-boys 
came out from Boston on their Saturday holiday to ask his autograph. 
The benign lover of children welcomed them heartily, showed them 
a hundred interesting objects in his house, then wrote his name for 
them and for the last time. 

WHITTIER, John Gkeenleaf, was born in Haver- 
hill, Mass., Dec. 17, 1807, and was educated in the schools of his 
native town. His home, since 1840, has been in Amesbury, Mass. 
He has never married. He has been a life-long member of the Society 
of Friends. For several years he was an editor in Boston, Hartford, 
and Philadelphia. While he was editor of the " Pennsylvania Free- 
man," in 1838-9, a mob sacked and burned the office. With Bryant 
and Longfellow, his contemporaries in literature for half a century, 
he has had a large place in the hearts of all lovers of poetry. His 
poems are peculiarly American. Many of his poems were born of 
his intense and holy hatred of oppression. He has been the poet of 
freedom. "My Psalm," "Barbara Frietchie," "Snow-Bound," "The 
Tent on the Beach," and "Maud Midler" are but a few of many 
popular poems written by Whittier. 

HOLMES, Oliver Wendell, was born in Cambridge, 

Mass., Aug. 29, 1809. At twenty years of age he was graduated at 
Harvard College. He studied medicine, and for thirty years or more 
was the Professor of Anatomy and Physiology in Harvard Medical 
College. He has been in the front rank of American authorship for 
fifty years — one of our most brilliant, original, and witty writers. His 
medical works are authorities in their line. His serials in the " At- 
lantic Monthly " under the titles, "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," 
" Professor at the Breakfast Table," and "Poet at the Breakfast Ta- 
ble " attracted great attention in literary circles. "Elsie Venner," a 
charming romance, is from his pen. He has written many poems for 
special occasions; as, class reunions, society gatherings, and public 
dinners. " Old Ironsides," " Last Leaf," "Welcome to the Nations," 
"My Aunt," " Bill and Joe," and " The One-Hoss Shay " are among 
his choice lyric and humorous poems. 

TENNYSON, Alfked, the poet laureate of England, 
who succeeded to this high honor after the death of Wordsworth in 
1850, was born at Somersby, England in 1809. His father was a clergy- 
man, and his mother was a clergyman's daughter. When eighteen 
years of age, he and his brother Charles published "Poems, by Two 



POETS. 29 



Brothers," and Coleridge said only those signed " C. T." gave prom- 
ise of a coming poet. In 1842, Tennyson published in two volumes 
" English Idyls, and other Poems." These gave him favor with poe- 
try-loving people, and quite disarmed the spirit of adverse criticism 
which rejected several previous publications. "May Queen," "In 
Memoriam," "Enoch Arden," and "Idyls of the King" are probably 
among his best writings and the most enjoyed. He receives from the 
crown, in addition to his salary as laureate, a pension of £200 a year. 
His life for the most part has been spent in quiet at his home in the 
isle of Wight. 

LOWELL, James Russell, an American poet and es- 
sayist, was horn in Cambridge, Mass., Feb. 22, 1819, and graduated at 
Harvard College in 1838. He studied law, was admitted to the bar 
and opened an oflice, bnt soon abandoned the profession and devoted 
himself wholly to literature. It is said that as an essayist and re- 
viewer he has no living superior. He is a rare example of literary 
excellence and versatility combined. In prose he has given us " Fire- 
side Travels," "Among my Books," and " My Study Windows." In 
poetry he has written "The First Snow-fall," "The Changeling," 
"The Present Crisis," "The Biglow Papers," and many others. He 
succeeded Longfellow, in 1855, as Professor of Modern Languages 
and Literature in Harvard College, and held the chair some twenty 
years. From 18.17 to 18G2 he edited the "Atlantic Monthly." From 
1803 to 1872 heAvas one of the editors of the " North American Re- 
view." President Arthur appointed Mr. Lowell as United States 
Minister to the Court of St. James. 

IIAYNE, Paul Hamilton, a poet and journalist, was 

born in Charleston, S. C, Jan. 1, 1831. His father, Lieut. Paul H. 
Hayne, was a younger brother of Robert Y. Hayne, whose debate 
with Daniel Webster is so famous in Congressional history. After 
graduating at the College of Charleston in 18.10, young Hayne studied 
law, and was admitted to the bar ; but his tastes inclined him too 
strongly to literature to pursue the legal profession. Several volumes 
of brief pdems, sonnets, and lyrics have been published by him, one 
entitled " Legends and Lyrics," another " Avolio, and other Poems." 
He has been a frequent contributor to periodicals, mainly of short 
poems. He has edited "Russell's Magazine/' Charleston "Evening 
News," and "Literary Gazette." In 1852 Mr. Hayne was married to 
Miss Mary Michel, of Charleston, the only daughter of Dr. William 
Michel, who was a surgeon in the army of the first Napoleon at the 
early age of eighteen years. 

SAXE, John G., one of the most humorous of poets, 

was bora in Ilighgate, Vt., June 2, 1816. He graduated at Middlebury 
College in 1830 ; studied law, and was in law practice from 1843 to 



30 POETS. 



1850. From 1850 to 1856 he edited the " Burlington (Vt.) Sentinel." 
His first collection of poems appeared in 1849— of which forty editions 
have been issued. "Briefless Barrister," "The Proud Miss Mac- 
Bride," and "The Money King" are good examples of his felicitous 
use of puns and other oddities of speech. 

MILLER, Joaquin, is one of the many peculiar liter- 
ary products of America. He was horn in Indiana, Nov. 10, 1841. 
When eleven years of age he went with his father's family to Oregon. 
At fourteen he was in California seeking his own fortune. After five 
years of wanderings, he returned to Oregon and studied law. At the 
opening of the Civil war in the United States, he was editing a Demo- 
cratic paper which was suppressed for disloyalty. From 1863 to 1870 
he was a lawyer and county judge. In these years he began to pub- 
lish his poetic effusions. One volume was called "Joaquin et al." 
This gave him his name in the literary world— the name by which 
his mother called him being Cincinnatus Hiner Miller. In 1870, his 
wife ( "Minnie Myrtle " in literature ) obtained a divorce, and he went 
to London, where he published the next year ■ ' Songs of the Sierras. " 
This work gave him the entree to all literary circles abroad. The 
" Songs of the Sun Lands " appeared in 1872. A prose work, " Life 
Among the Modocs," was published in 1873. Mr. Miller is one of the 
popular lecturers of the day. 

BROWNING, Robert, was born in Camber well, Eng- 
land in 1812, and was educated at the London University. At twenty 
years of age he went to Italy, and made the most thorough study of 
Italian life, manners, and history. He is regarded by many as one 
of the greatest poets of the age. Most of his works are dramatic— 
" Bippa Passes," "A Blot on the Scutcheon," and " Colombe's Birth- 
day " being the finest. His shorter poems are more popular; such as, 
" The Pied Piper of Hamelin," " How They Brought the Good News 
from Ghent to Aix," and " My Lost Duchess." 

BROWNING, Elizabeth Barrett, said by one critic 
"to be the greatest female poet that England has produced," was 
born in Herefordshire in 1809. She died in Florence, Italy, June 29, 
1861. Her education was in a masculine range of studies. She had a 
woman's heart and the mind of a man. For many years she was an 
invalid. In 1844 she published a collection of poems which contained 
"Lady Geraldine's Courtship," one of her finest productions, and in 
which there was a graceful compliment to Robert Browning. It was 
this that led to their personal acquaintance, and, two years later, to 
their marriage. Mrs. Browning's most noted poem is "Aurora Leigh." 
"Casa Guidi Windows," "Cowper's Grave," and "The Cry of the 
Children " came from the same heart and brain. 



NOVELISTS. 31 



HEMANS, Felicia Dorothea, was born in Liver- 
pool, Sept. 25, 171)4. Her lather was Irish ; her mother, a native of 
Venice. At the age of eighteen years she married Capt. Hemans of 
the English army. Five sons were born to them. In 1818 she and 
her husband separated, and never met afterward. Mrs. Hemans 
returned to hsr mother's home in Wales, and devoted herself to lit- 
erature and the care of her children. Her health failing she went to 
reside with her brother near Dublin, and there died of scarlet fever, 
May 12, 1835. Among her literary friends, and whom she visited at 
their homes, were Scott and Wordsworth. She began to write at ten 
years of age. At fourteen she published "Early Blossoms." Her 
second volume appeared in 1812. She wrote "Graves of a House- 
hold," " Landing of the Pilgrims," " Casabianca," and other popular 
poems. Her works have passed through numerous editions in the 
United States. 

SIGOURNEY, Lydia Huntley, was born in Norwich, 

Conn., Sept. 1, 1791, and died in Hartford, Conn., June 10, 1S65. She 
published nearly sixty volumes of poems, prose, and selections. In 
prose she wrote "Pleasant Memories of Pleasant Lands" (reminis- 
cences of European travel), and "Letters to Young Ladies." In 
poetry she wrote ' f Pocahontas, and other Poems," and " The Man of 
Uz, and other Poems." Her ideals of life and character were noble, 
and her writings have ennobled multitudes of readers. It is said that 
she could read fluently and intelligently when three years old. 

INGELOW, Jean, since Mrs. Browning's day, "the 

Queen of English song," was born in Lincolnshire in 1830. By na- 
ture very reserved, she led a quiet, uneventful life till 1863, when a 
volume of " Poems" secured to her at once a foremost rank among 
poets. Several of the poems of this volume have become widely popu- 
lar, especially " Divided," " Songs of Seven," and " High Tide on the 
Coast of Lincolnshire." Besides poems she has written several vol- 
umes of stories for children, of which "Mopsa the Fairy" is called 
the best. "Off the Skelligs" aud other novels are by this gifted 
writer. Her works have had immense sales in England and America. 
In about ten years the sales of her poems in America amounted to 
98,000 copies, and of prose works, 35,000. 



NOVELISTS. 
SCOTT, Sir Walter, was born in Edinburgh, Aug. 

15, 1771. Like Byron he limped from his cradle to his grave. He was 
not a bright scholar, but he was a leader in the sports of the school- 
yard. While a school-boy he was often extemporizing stories for his 



32 NOVELISTS. 



school-fellows. From fifteen to twenty-one years of age he was a law 
student in his father's office — though he probably read books of me- 
diaeval legend, romance, military exploits, and border songs more 
than law. He was a man of iron nerve, born to be a leader, yet a 
man beloved by his peers and servants. He loved his dogs and horses 
and deer. When a favorite deer died he declined an invitation to 
dinner, saying, "The death of an old friend makes me unwilling to 
dine out." He was in law practice fourteen years. Then he took the 
office of clerk of the court, the duties of which left him ample leisure 
for literary pursuits. His first appearance in literature was in poetry. 
His three principal poems were "Lay of the Last Minstrel," " Mar- 
mion," and ' s Lady of the Lake." On Byron's appearance in litera- 
ture, Scott perceived his superior poetic genius and at once turned 
his own attention to prose. His poems had won great favor, and the 
poet laureateship was offered him. Scott became a prince of novel- 
ists. His first great story was c ' Waverley "—published anonymously 
in 1814. Carlyle praised this more than any other of Scott's works. 
In the next four years he wrote " Guy Mannering," ''Antiquary," 
"Black Dwarf," "Old Mortality," <c Rob Roy," and "Heart of 
Midlothian;" and in 1819 came "Bride of Lammermoor," "Legend 
of Montrose," and (i Ivanhoe." From 1804 to 1812 he wrote and edited 
not less than fifty volumes. From 1814 to 1829 he wrote his twenty- 
three principal works and many short stories, was a frequent con- 
tributor to periodicals, and edited some twenty -five volumes for other 
writers, besides all his correspondence which was so great that his 
postage bills were much of the time £150 a year. In his prosperous 
days Walter Scott bought an estate of 1,000 acres on the Tweed, and 
called it Abbotsford. At fifty -five years of age he was a bankrupt to 
the amount of £150,000. This was largely on account of his habit of 
signing notes at the bank. His creditors offered to take a percentage. 

His answer was, ' ' No, Gentlemen, time and I against any two 

I believe I shall be able to pay you every farthing. I see before me a 
long, tedious, and dark path, but it leads to a stainless name." He 
resumed his pen, and in three months " Woodstock " was in the mar- 
ket and Scott's creditors had £8,000. Next came the "Life of Napo- 
leon" and £18,000. In five years the bankrupt's pen had paid £63,000. 
The long dreaded paralysis occurred Feb. 15, 1S30, but still he worked 
on with a whole will and half a brain, producing " Count Robert of 
Paris," " Castle Dangerous," and "Tales of a Grandfather." At the 
time of his death £50,000 remained to be paid. A life insurance, and 
the copyrights of his works in fifteen years, sufficed to pay the last 
farthing. In Sept. 1831 the government honored itself by putting a 
government ship at his disposal for a voyage to Italy, but in nine 
months he was brought back as tenderly as an infant to his home on 
the Tweed. He recognized the place and seemed brighter. The 



NOVELISTS. 33 



second day he asked to be taken to his library and wanted his son-in- 
law to read. ''What book?" asked Lockhart. "Need you ask? 
There is but one," said the great book-writer. The fourteenth chap- 
ter of John was read, and he said : " Well, this is a great comfort, and 

I feel as if I were yet to be myself again." The next day he wished to 
be placed by his table with his paper. The wish was granted and he 
tried to take his pen, but his hand had lost its cunning,— he could not 
hold his pen and laid it down, the great tears rolling over his cheeks. 
He soon went to his bed too sick to rise,— too wandering for conversa- 
tion. Sept. 21, 1832, "that golden -hearted man," as Washington 
Irving said of him, and "the whole world's idol," as Wordsworth 
called him, died in the presence of all his children ; and almost every 
newspaper in the realm was "in mourning " in announcing his death. 
He was the first abundant and one of the purest story-tellers in the 
English language, and his stories have enriched almost every language 
of Europe. When his bankruptcy was announced it was said : " Let 
every man, to whom he has furnished months of delight, give him a 
sixpence, and he will be richer than Rothschild." 

DICKENS, Charles, was born Feb. 7, 1812 near Ports- 
mouth, England. As early as nine years of age he had read numerous 
novels and written a tragedy. About this time his father became a 
bankrupt and was imprisoned, and Charles was sent to work in a 
blacking factoiy. A legacy enabled the father to put his son in 
school for two years, and then in a lawyer's office. At nineteen he 
became a parliamentary reporter for London papers. His first pub- 
lished sketch appeared in 1834 in " Old Monthly Magazine," with this 
subject: "Mrs. Joseph Porter over the Way." Similar sketches, 
signed "Boz," appeared in succeeding issues of the magazine, but 
were discontinued when the author wanted pay for his work. In 
1836 he began his "Pickwick" papers, which made him the most 
popular writer in the ^English language. Few writers have written 
more, and probably no other prolific writer has written so uniformly 
well. "Nicholas Nickleby," "David Copperfield," "Old Curiosity 
Shop," and "Great Expectations" are among his best novels. His 

II Christmas Stories " for children have been highly prised. " Martin 
Chuzzlewit," written in 1843, after his first visit to the United States, 
was a take-off on American men and manners. In 1869 he visited the 
United States again, and, in our principal cities, gave public readings 
from his works. He portrays the lives of the poor and lowly,— their 
wrongs and wretchedness,— and shows that goodness and worth may 
often be in the hovel no less than in the palace. It is impossible to 
estimate the good done, the tears wiped away, and the healthful en- 
joyment given by Ins pages. In 1858, after twenty -two years of mar- 
ried life, Dickens and his wife separated for reasons never fully given 
to the public. He left five sons and two daughters. From boyhood 



34 NOVELISTS. 



days he desired to own Gadshill house near Rochester, Eng., and this 
object and the sting of early poverty made him prudent in his af- 
fairs, and in 1857 he made Gadshill his home. His first visitor there 
was Hans Christian Andersen. His death was sudden. Sitting down 
to dinner with a company of guests, June 8, 1870, he appeared to be 
ill, but said it was only a toothache ; and, at the same time, asking to 
have a window closed, he sank into a stupor from which he did not 
rally, and died the next day. He had declined a baronetcy, and, in 
his will, directed that his funeral be inexpensive and private. He 
was buried in the poets' corner of Westminster. His estate was esti- 
mated at half a million dollars. 

COOPER, James Fenimore, born in Burlington, N. J., 
Sept. 15, 1789, was the first notable writer of fiction in America. He 
entered Yale College at thirteen years of age, and remained three 
years. Then he spent six years in the United States navy. He ap- 
peared as a writer in 1821, and took a front rank in literary circles at 
once. His life upon the ocean prepared him to write what is called 
the "Pirate" series of novels. Nowhere in all literature is the story 
of American frontier life better told than in his "Leather Stocking" 
series, — in which also are the most graphic pictures of Indian life 
and character. His "Spy, or the Tale of the Neutral Ground" is a 
thrilling story of the American Revolution. He wrote thirty-three 
novels, and many volumes of history, biography, and travels. It is 
said that he regarded "Bravo" as his best work. He died in Coopers- 
town, New York, Sept. 14, 1851. 

THACKERAY, William Makepeace, an English 

novelist, was born in Calcutta in 1811, and died in London, Dec. 24, 
1863. At twenty-one years of age he came into possession of £20,000, 
and soon lost the most of it in speculation. He spent years in efforts 
to become an artist, and his drawings were not without merit ; they 
lacked, however, the bright touches of a master-hand. Finally, when 
about thirty years of age, he adopted literature as his profession. His 
first story was "The Devil's Wager." His success was not assured 
till the appearance of "Vanity Fair," which was issued in monthly 
numbers in 184G-8. Among his many great novels are " Pendennis," 
" The Newcomes," " The Virginians," " Henry Esmond," — which the 
author regarded as his best production, — and "Vanity Fair," which 
has probably been his most popular work. He twice visited the 
United States and gave lectures upon " The Four Georges," and the 
"English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century." Thackeray and 
Dickens, quite unlike each other, divide between them the honors 
of the foremost novelists of their day. They both labored for the 
good of society; Thackeray, with his wider culture, ridiculing the 
follies of the higher classes ; and Dickens, with his greater genius, 



NOVELISTS. 35 



describing the miseries of the poor and oppressed. Thackeray tells 
of his first meeting his noted cotemporaiy and brother in literature 
as follows: "I can remember when Mr. Dickens was a very young 
man and wanted an artist to illustrate his writings, .... and I recol- 
lect walking up to his rooms with two or three drawings in my hand, 
which, strange to say, he did not find suitable." 

BULWER-LYTTON, Edward George, an eminent 

English novelist, and the father of "Owen Meredith," was born in 
May 1805. He took his mother's name of Lytton on succeeding to her 
estates in 1843, was made a peer of the realm as Baron Lytton in 1866, 
and died in London, Jan. 18, 1873. In the opinion of some critics he 
excelled his great cotemporaries, Thackeray and Dickens, though he 
has never been so popular a writer. His principal novels are " Pel- 
ham," "Eugene Aram," "Last Day of Pompeii," " Rienzi," and "The 
Caxtons." Two excellent dramas, "Richelieu" and "The Lady of 
Lyons" are from his pen, and also a number of poems. 

DUMAS, Alexandre, a French novelist and drama- 
tist, was born July 21, 1803. His father, one of Napoleon's favorite 
generals, was a mulatto. In 1827 his genius was awakened while at- 
tending the Shakspearean plays of an English company in Paris. He 
felt that the French stage needed to be reformed, and he resolved to be 
an apostle of a new era in French drama. His dramas, " Henri III.," 
"Christine," and "Antony," made him famous. After a few years 
he appeared as a novelist, producing " Chroniques de France" and 
other works. So popular were his writings that he made a contract 
in 1816 to furnish two newspapers with an amount of manuscript equal 
to sixty volumes in a year. He had the rare faculty of employing 
assistants in composition. He was the Samson of scribes. His daily 
work averaged thirty -two pages of an ordinary octavo volume. In- 
cluding translations and adaptations he produced nearly 1,000 vol- 
umes. His receipts were from $30,000 to $50,000 a year. His finan- 
cial condition is described as follows : "Always earning, constantly 
working, forever borrowing, ceaselessly lending, eternally in debt." 
He built a residence at a cost of 450,000 francs, ( but which was sold 
a few years later for less than a tenth of that sum). When the 
Franco-Prussian war broke out he was at work upon a Spanish his- 
tory. On account of the war he left Paris and went to Dieppe, and 
there died Dec. 5, 1870, — the day on which the Prussians entered the 
capital of France. His most popular novels are "The Count of Monte 
Cristo," "Three Guardsmen," "Twenty Years After," and "Mar- 
garet of Anjou." 

ANDERSEN, Hans Christian, a Danish author, was 

born in Odense, April 2, 1805, and died in Copenhagen, Aug. 4, 1875. 
His early education was chiefly obtained in a charity school. His 



36 NOVELISTS. 



first plan for life-work had the theater in view, but his voice failed 
him, and then a friend secured him admission, free of expense, to the 
royal college of Copenhagen. While a student he wrote his first 
book,— "A Journey on foot to Amak. " This won for him friends and 
means. Next came ' e The Improvisatore,"— an unrivaled picture of 
scenery and life in Southern Europe. Among his other works are 
"Only a Fiddler," "Travels in the Hartz Mountains," " Fairy Tales," 
and volumes of poetry, dramas, and fairy comedies. His "Fairy 
Tales " have been read with delight in every modern language. On 
his seventieth birth -day he received this unique present, — a volume 
containing one of his stories printed in fifteen different languages. In 
1845 he became the recipient of a royal annuity, making the remainder 
of his useful life free from care or want. 

SIMMS, William Gilmore, an American poet and 

novelist, was born in Charleston, S. C, April 17, 1806, and died there 
Jan. 11, 1870. From a clerkship in a drug store he went to a lawyer's 
office, and was admitted to the bar in 1827. From 1828 to 1832 he was 
editor and part proprietor of the " Charleston City Gazette," and, by 
opposing nullification, was reduced to poverty. In poetry he wrote 
"Atlantis," " Lays of the Palmetto," and " Songs and Ballads of the 
South." In prose he wrote " Life of Marion " and History of South 
Carolina." A selected edition of seventeen of his novels was issued 
in New York in 1865. "The Yemassee," " Swamp Robbers," "The 
Partisan," and "The Scout" are historical, while "Castle Dismal," 
"Carl Werner," and "Wigwam and Cabin" are imaginative fiction. 

COLLINS, William Wilkie, was born in London 
in Jan. 1824. His first plan for fife was to become a merchant, but he 
exchanged commerce for law, and then abandoned the law for litera- 
ture. He has written a few dramas, but his novels constitute his 
principal work. Among these are "Mr. Wray's Cash Box," "The 
Woman in White," "Poor Miss Finch," "No Name," and others. 
In 1873 he gave public readings from his works in the principal cities 
of the United States. 

HUGO, Victok Marie, a French poet and novelist, 

was born in Besancon, Feb. 2G, 1802. At twenty years of age he pub- 
lished a volume of "Odes and Ballads " that attracted great attention. 
His drama, " Marion Delorme," added much to his fame. Among his 
most popular novels are " Notre Dame de Paris," " Les Orientales," 
and " Les Miserables." This last appeared simultaneously ( in 1862) 
in nine different languages and eight principal cities of Europe and 
the United States. An illustrated edition, issued in parts, in Paris 
reached a sale of 150,000 copies. As an author he has shown a pre- 
dilection for the horrible and monstrous. On account of his political 



NOVELISTS. 37 



opposition to Louis Napoleon he lived in exile nineteen years, and, 
though the benefit of a political amnesty was offered him, he refused 
to accept it, and would not return to France till the overthrow of the 
emperor. In 1837 Louis Philippe made him a member of the Legion 
of Honor, and in 1845, a peer of France. After Napoleon's fall he was 
elected to the National Assembly. In a volume of poetry (1872), "The 
Terrible Year," he depicted the woes of France during the rage of 
Communism. His death, May 22, 1885, left all France in sorrow. 

READE, Charles, a noted English novelist of the 
present century, was born at Ipsden, Oxfordshire, in 1814. Follow- 
ing his university education, he studied law and was admitted to the 
bar. His first stories were " Peg Woffington " and " Christie Johns- 
tone." Among his subsequent works are "White Lies," "Griffith 
Gaunt," "Never Too Late to Mend," and "Put Yourself in His 
Place." "Hard Cash" was written to call public attention to the 
abuses of lunatic asylums, and official investigation followed, and 
also a change in English lunacy laws. His style is terse and vigorous, 
and his pages are rich in incidents. 

BLACK, William, one of the first of living novelists, 

was born in Glasgow in Nov., 1841. He went to London in 1864; was 
the war correspondent of the "Morning Star" (London) during the 
Russo-Austrian war ; has edited the "London Review;" since 1875 
he has devoted himself to fiction exclusively. He has written " Prin- 
cess of Thule," " Coquette," " Love or Marriage," " Shandon Bells," 
"White Wings," and "Judith Shakspeare,"— this last is his latest 
and most brilliant production. He is high-toned, correct, classic, 
entertaining, and instructive. He resides at Denmark Hill near Lon- 
don. 

BRONTE, Charlotte, whose well-known name in 

literature is " Currer Bell," was born in Thornton, England, April 21, 
1816, and died in Haworth, March 31, 1855. At school she cared noth- 
ing for play; was quiet and studious ; sometimes she exercised her 
genius in telling stories to her school-mates. Her sisters, Emily and 
Anne, were literary in their tastes also. Each of the three wrote a 
novel. Emily, as "Ellis Bell," and Anne, as "Acton Bell," found 
publishers; but "Currer Bell" found no one to publish her story. 
Under this disappointment she wrote "Jane Eyre," which had an 
immense sale, and was translated into many languages. Thackeray 
says, "I well remember the delight and wonder and pleasure with 
which I read "Jane Eyre," sent to me by an author whose name and 
sex were then alike unknown to me ; and how, with my own work 
pressing upon me, I could not, having taken the volumes up, lay them 
down until they were read through." " Shirley" and "Villette" were 



38 TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 

by the same gifted author. In- the spring of 1854, she was married to 
her father's curate, the Rev. Arthur Nicholls, who had long known 
and loved her. 

EVANS, Marian ("George Eliot"), the princess of 
English novelists, was born in Warwickshire, Nov. 22, 1820, and died 
in Dec, 1880. Her first literary work, " Scenes of Clerical Life," ap- 
peared in "Blackwood's Magazine" in 1857. In poetry she wrote 
" The Spanish Gypsy " and " The Legend of Jubal." For a time she 
was an assistant editor of the "Westminster Review." In novels she 
wrote "Adam Bede," "Mill on the Floss," "Romola," "Middle- 
march," "Daniel Deronda," and " Theophrastus Such." The scenes 
of her stories are nearly all laid in the village and provincial life of 
England. Her forte is in delineations of character, and in this she 
has no superior among novelists. The authorship of " Adam Bede " 
led to a peculiar and heated controversy. Miss Evans (or rather Mrs. 
George Henry Lewes, as she was known the most of her life) con- 
cealed her real name under the pseudonym of "George Eliot," and 
one Joseph Liggins made a manuscript copy of the story, and went 
about showing the same and claiming to be the real author, and actu- 
ally received money from benevolent people on the plea that, like 
Milton, he had been paid but a pittance for his work. Many believed 
in Liggins until "George Eliot " had published one or more additional 
works, and which Liggins did not see fit to copy or claim. 



TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 

COLUMBUS, Christopher, the discoverer of Ameri- 
ca, was born in Genoa about 1440. At fourteen years of age he began 
his sea-faring life. As early as 1474 he announced his belief in a west- 
era route to India. In 1481, if not earlier, he was soliciting royal aid 
to make a western voyage of discovery. Portugal, Venice, and Genoa, 
all declined the venture. At last Isabella of Spain, chiefly moved by 
religious considerations, furnished the means, and on Friday, Aug. 3, 
1492, with three small ships and one hundred and twenty men, Colum- 
bus set his sails at Palos, Spain, for a perilous voyage across the un- 
known Atlantic. On Friday, Oct. 12, he landed on one of the Bahama 
islands, and called it San Salvador. Cuba and Hayti were also dis- 
covered on this voyage ; the first was supposed to be India, and the 
latter, Ophir. Jan. 4, 1493, Columbus sailed homeward, and arrived at 
Palos, March 15. The following September, he sailed again for his 
"India" with a fleet of seventeen ships, carrying fifteen hundred 
men, and visited other West India islands, and established a colony 
at Hispaniola. In May, 1498, he sailed for his third western voyage, 



TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 39 

and found the mouth of the Orinoco. In the meantime, difficulties 
occurred at Hispaniola, and an agent from the home government 
came and arrested Columbus and his brother, and sent them in chains 
to Spain. Twenty-three months after, this government officer, Boba- 
dilla, was drowned on his voyage home. In May, 1502, Columbus 
sailed the fourth time for America, and explored the northern shores 
of the Gulf of Mexico. The authorities of Hispaniola refused him 
permission to refit his vessels in their port. He returned to Spain 
Nov. 7, 1504. The Queen Isabella was now dead, and the king turned 
a deaf ear to certain just claims of the great discoverer. An old man 
broken in body though in full possession of his mental faculties, with 
no home, with no stopping place but an inn, and often with nothing 
to pay for food, Columbus died May 20, 1500, at Valladolid, Spain. 
His remains were twice buried in Spain, and then in 1536 taken to 
Santo Domingo, and after two hundred and sixty years, in 1796, they 
were conveyed with great pomp to the cathedral of Havana. 

HUDSON, Henry, a British navigator, was born 
about the middle of the sixteenth century, — the most notable century 
for the spirit of discovery. He was the last of the great navigators 
who first explored the Atlantic coast of the American continent. May 
1, 1607, he was sent out by a company of London merchants to find a 
polar-sea passage to China and India, with instructions, if possible, 
to sail directly over the North Pole. This was a " polar expedition" 
indeed, and also Hudson's first recorded voyage. He went with one 
small ship and a crew of ten men and his own little son. He reached 
the eastern coast of Greenland, from thence sailed eastward to Sjjitz- 
bergen, went as far north as latitude eighty-one or eighty-two degrees, 
and, unable to go further, for the solid ice, turned homeward and ar- 
rived in London in September. The next year he sought a north-east 
passage between Spitzbergen and Nova Zembla, but without success. 
The London merchants becoming discouraged, he was employed by 
the "Dutch East India Company," and sailed in 1600 in the "Half 
Moon." On this voyage he went north-east beyond North Cape, and 
then, abandoning the attempt at a north-east passage, sailed directly 
for the American coast, hoping to find somewhere north of Virginia 
a water-route to China. On this voyage he discovered Delaware 
Bay, and, Sept. 11, the beautiful river that bears his name, and which 
he ascended about one hundred and fifty miles. April 17, 1610, he 
sailed on his last and lamentable voyage in a ship fitted out by Eng- 
lishmen, with a crew of twenty-three men, and being provisioned for 
six months. This was one of the first attempts to find a north-west 
passage. In June or July he entered the great bay in North America 
which bears his name, and, for a while, supposed he had found an 
open way to Asia. It appears that he spent the following winter in 



40 TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 

the "bay. Provisions failed, and they had to live on such game as 
came in their way. A part of the crew became mutinous, and, June 
22, 1611, Hudson and his son and seven of the crew were put in an 
open boat and abandoned,— the mutineers taking the ship and sail- 
ing homeward. No trace of Hudson was ever found. Soon after, 
while at Cape Digges, four of the five ringleaders of this great crime 
were shot by savages, and the fifth died of starvation on the way 
home. 

RALEIGH, Sir Walter, an English courtier and 

navigator, was born at Hayes, Devonshire, in 1552. At seventeen 
years of age he left college, and joined a troop sent to aid the Hugue- 
nots in France. In 1578 he sailed for America with his half-brother, 
Sir Humphrey Gilbert; but one ship was lost, and the remainder were 
crippled by an engagement with a Spanish fleet, and they returned 
without making land. One day he met Queen Elizabeth in a muddy 
street, and spread his mantle for her to step on in crossing a miry 
place, and thus won favor and place at court. The queen gave him 
a title to a vast tract of what is now the Southern States, and he fitted 
out expeditions of exploration which brought back so glowing re- 
ports that the maiden queen called the land, in honor of herself, 
Virginia. In 1585 Raleigh fitted out two ships with one hundred and 
eight emigrants to colonize his domain. The next year he sent out 
reinforcements, but the previous colonists had abandoned the settle- 
ment and returned to England. A third attempt was made in 1587, 
but with no better success. Raleigh's American enterprises amounted 
to but little besides introducing tobacco and potatoes into Europe. 
England and Spain were at war upon the seas in his day, and he 
fitted out thirteen ships, and went to the West Indies to cripple the 
Spanish power, and brought back the richest " prize " ever seen in an 
English port. The queen's death, in 1603, proved to be the ruin of 
Raleigh, for then his many bitter and powerful enemies came forward 
and secured his arrest and condemnation for treason. He was thirteen 
years in prison, in which time he wrote a " History of the World," the 
best historical work in the English language in 1614. In March, 1615, 
Raleigh was released, but not pardoned, and immediately fitted out a 
fleet of fourteen ships, to visit and destroy the Spanish settlements in 
South America. In 1618 he returned, completely broken in fortune 
and reputation. Under the sentence of 1603, he was beheaded Oct. 29, 
1618. 

PENNT, William, was born in London, Oct. 14, 1644, 

and died at Ruscombe, England, July 30, 1718. While a student in 
Christ Church College, Oxford, he became a Quaker. He paid dear- 
ly for his principles, meeting his father's disapprobation, and being 
several times imprisoned, but was steadfast, and, at the last, trium- 
phant over his persecutors. The crown was indebted to his father's 



TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 41 

estate for £16,000, and in settlement he took the territory now known 
as Pennsylvania, subject to an annual tribute of two beaver skins. 
He immediately set to work to place a colony in his domain, and de- 
vised a liberal code of laws for its government. In the fall of 16S2, he 
visited his colony, and met the several Indian tribes occupying the 
territory, and made a treaty of peace and friendship with them,— the 
only treaty, says Voltaire, " never sworn to and never broken." He 
laid out the city of Philadelphia, and gave it its name. Returning 
to England in 1684, he was honored with large influence with James II. 
Slander and envy led several times to his arrest and trial on sus- 
picions of treason, but he was never convicted. In 1699 he visited his 
colony again. In 1712 he suffered several shocks of paralysis, and, 
though he lived six years, he never regained his mental vigor, and 
much of the time had no power of memory or of motion. The small 
brick house in which he lived in Philadelphia has been moved to 
Fainnount Park, and is kept as a precious relic by the "city of 
brotherly love." 

COOK, James, the first circumnavigator of the globe, 
was born at Marton in Yorkshire, Eng., Oct. 27, 1728. He began his 
life upon the seas as a cabin boy in a coasting vessel. At twenty - 
seven years of age he was in the royal navy, and at the capture of 
Quebec he commanded one of the vessels that co-operated with Gen. 
Wolfe. When the British government sent an expedition, in 176S, to 
Tahiti to observe a transit of Venus, Capt. Cook had command of the 
vessel. After the astronomical observations were made, he sailed in 
search of the "Antarctic continent;" discovered the narrow strait 
which divides New Zealand into two parts ; took possession of the 
coast of Australia about Botany Bay in the name of the king of Great 
Britain, and laid down thirteen hundred miles of the coast line ; and 
returned home in June, 1771, — having made the circuit of the globe. 
July 13, 1772. he went again to the South Seas to find a southern con- 
tinent, and reached latitude 71 deg. 10 min. south, and was out of 
sight of land one hundred and seventeen days. He was gone three 
years, having sailed over 20,000 leagues. In July, 1776, he sailed for 
Behring's Strait to make out a north-west passage to Asia. On this 
voyage he discovered and named the Sandwich islands. Ice prevented 
his passage beyond Behring's Strait, and he returned to the Sand- 
wich islands. The natives stole one of his boats, and Captain Cook 
with ten men went ashore to capture the king to hold him until the 
boat should be restored, but a fight ensued, and the great navigator 
and four of his men were killed, Feb. 14, 1779. 

FRANKLIN", Sir John, was born at Spilsby, Eng., 
April 16, 17S6. His father sought to educate him for the ministry, 
but his predilection was for the sea, and at fourteen years of age he 



42 TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 

was a midshipman in the navy. The next year he went to the coast 
of Australia, and remained nearly two years, and was there ship- 
wrecked. He was in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, and also at New 
Orleans in the last battle of England's second war with the United 
States. In 1818 he commanded one of the two ships sent to find a way 
northward of Spitzbergen to India. From 1819 to 1822, he was at the 
head of an overland expedition from Hudson's Bay to the Arctic 
Ocean. In 1825 he set out on a like expedition. On the day set for 
his departure, his wife lay at the point of death, but insisted upon his 
going, and gave him a silk flag to be unfurled when he should reach 
the polar sea. She died the day after he left England. From 1836 to 
1843, he was governor of Van Diemen's Land, and so endeared himself 
to the people that, many years afterward, they sent to his second 
wife, Lady Franklin, £1,700 to assist in her search for her missing 
husband. May 19, 1845, the ships " Erebus" and " Terror," with one 
hundred and thirty-four officers and crew, left Sheerness, England, 
under the command of Sir John Franklin to search for a north-Avest 
passage. The expedition was last seen by a whaler in Baffin's Bay, 
July 26, of the same year. His orders were to return in 1847. Several 
expeditions were sent out to find him. A record was found in 1859 
to the effect that this bold seaman died June 11, 1847, near latitude 
69 deg. 37 min. north, and longitude 98 deg. 4 min. west. 

KANE, Elisha Kent, was born in Philadelphia, Feb. 
3, 1820. He studied medicine in his native city, and before he was of 
age was appointed resident physician of the Pennsylvania hospital. 
His health being poor, he secured the position of post surgeon in the 
navy, and went in the frigate Brandywine, in 1843, as physician to an 
embassy to China. He traveled extensively in India, China, Persia, 
Syria, Egypt, and Europe, and visited Borneo, Sumatra, and Ceylon. 
He was attacked and wounded by Bedouins, and, at Alexandria, had 
the plague. In 1846 he visited Africa, and went to Dahomey and saw 
the " slave factories " of the land, and had the African fever. Re- 
turning home, he was transferred to the army, and hastened to par- 
ticipate in the war with Mexico, where a horse was shot under him 
and he was wounded. In May, 1850, he went in the first Grinnell ex- 
pedition in search of Sir John Franklin, of which he published a 
thrilling account. A second expedition for the same object left New 
York, May 30, 1853, with Dr. Kane for commander. It returned in 
Oct. 1855,— the crew having had to abandon their ships, and travel 
eighty -four days with boats and sledges to Danish settlements on the 
coast of Greenland, where they met a relief ship sent out for them- 
selves. Dr. Kane was confident that he found an open polar sea. 
His report in two volumes, "Second Grinnell Expedition," had a 
great sale. This report being made, his work was done. He sought 
rest and strength in vain. He died in Havana, Feb. 16, 1857. 



TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 43 

WILKES, Charles, an American naval officer, was 

born in New York in 1801. He served in the Mediterranean and the 
Pacific in 1819-23. Aug. 18, 1838, he sailed in command of a squadron 
of five ships to explore the southern seas, — the first maritime ex- 
ploring expedition ever sent out by the United States. In this voyage 
of almost four years, he visited all the principal islands in the South 
Pacific Ocean ; discovered the Antarctic continent ; measured the 
pendulum on the summit of Mauna Loa— nearly 14,000 feet above the 
ocean level,— visited the north -west coast of America, including the 
Columbia and Sacramento rivers ; twice doubled Cape Horn, and re- 
turned home by way of Borneo, Singapore, Cape of Good Hope, and 
St. Helena. In 1861 he went to the West Indies in command of the 
"San Jacinto" to look after the confederate steamer "Sumter." Nov. 
8, 1861, he boarded the English mail steamer "Trent," and forcibly 
removed Slidell and Mason, confederate commissioners to England 
and France, and conveyed them to Boston. He was made rear-admi- 
ral and placed on the retired list, July 25, 1866. His death occurred 
at Washington, Feb. 8, 1877. 

LIVINGSTONE, David, an English missionary, trav- 
eler, and explorer, was born at Blantyre near Glasgow, Scotland, 
March 19, 1813. His early education was obtained in evening schools 
while his days were given to work in a cotton mill. His interest in 
foreign missions led him to pursue courses of theological and medical 
study. In 1840 he left England for Port Natal, and thence he went 
inland six hundred miles north-east of Cape Town. Nine years were 
occupied in teaching and other missionary labor. In 1849 he went in 
search of Lake Ngami, which he discovered August 1, of that year. 
After 1852, he devoted himself almost wholly to explorations of inland 
Africa. In his first great journey, of about four years, he traversed 
11,000 miles, for which achievement he received the Victoria gold 
medal of the royal geographical society. In the spring of 1858, he 
went again into the "Dark Continent," and was gone about five 
years. In April, 1865, he went on his third and greatest and last 
journey of exploration. Nothing was heard from him for more than 
a year, and, then, only a report that he had been killed. In April, 
1868, letters from the traveler proved the report untrue. The next 
news, a letter dated July, 1868, was received in Nov., 1869. He was 
at that writing near Lake Bangweolo. The next communication was 
dated, Ujiji, May 13, 1869, and then came another long silence of near- 
ly two years. In the meantime, "Livingstone Relief Committees" 
were organized in England, and an expedition was sent out to find 
the great traveler. No success, however, attended the effort. In 
1871, the enterprise of the " New York Herald " sent H. M. Stanley to 
find Livingstone, — he found him at Ujiji in very great destitution. 



44 



TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 



They traveled together some months. In March, 1872, Mr. Stanley 
returned to England,— leaving Livingstone to carry out his plans of 
about a year of travel in South Central Africa. At Ilala, May 1, 
1873, Livingstone was found in his tent, in the attitude of prayer, 
dead. His attendants reverently and filially embalmed his body as 
best they could, and, through great hardships, bore it to the coast, 
and thence it was borne to England in a government vessel, and 
buried in Westminster, April 18, 1874, — Stanly being one of the pall- 
bearers. Livingstone's reports of his travels are of great value and 
interest. 

STANLEY, Henry Moreland, an American trav- 
eler, was a native of Wales, born near Denbigh in 1840. From the age 
of three to thirteen years, he was in the poor-house at St. Asaph, 
where he received a good education. At fourteen he shipped as cabin 
boy, and came to New Orleans, and there was adopted by a merchant 
named Stanley, and took his foster-father's name instead of his for- 
mer name, John Rowlands. He enlisted in the confederate service, 
was taken prisoner, and joined the union army. In 1866 he visited 
Wales, and gave a dinner to the children in the poor-house at Asaph, 
where, in a speech, he credited to his education there received his 
past and all future success. In the same year he traveled in Turkey 
and Asia Minor. In 1868 he was the correspondent of the New York 
Herald in the British campaign in Abyssinia. In Nov., 1869, he wit- 
nessed the opening of the Suez Canal, and then traveled about a year 
in Palestine, the valley of the Euphrates, India, and Persia. Jan. 6, 
1871, he was at Zanzibar on his way to find Livingstone. Leaving 
Zanzibar, March 21, with one hundred and ninety -two followers, he 
traveled eight months toward the interior of Africa, and, Nov. 10, 
found Livingstone at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. These two greatest of 
modern explorers of Africa spent four months together and traversed 
the northern portions of this great lake,— finding, as they were con- 
fident, that it was not the source of the Nile. Leaving Livingstone to 
extend his explorations southward, Stanley bid him farewell, March 
14, 1872, and arrived in England in July. " How I Found Livingstone" 
is one of the most thrilling books of modern travel, — excelled only by 
Stanley's later and greater story, "Through the Dark Continent." 
Soon after Livingstone's burial, Stanley was commissioned by the New 
Y r ork Herald and the London Telegraph to explore the lake region 
of equatorial Africa. He left Zanzibar, Nov. 17, 1874,— Aug 12, 1877, 
he was at the mouth of the Congo. It was a journey of 7,158 miles. 
His three English companions and one hundred and seventy native 
followers perished by the way,— one hundred and eight natives were 
safely returned by steamer to Zanzibar. The work of Livingstone and 
Stanley has greatly interested all Christian lands in civilizing and 
Christianizing the hitherto unknown millions of inland Africa. 



TRAVELERS xlND EXPLORERS. 45 

DU CHAILLU, Paul Belloni, a native of Paris, 

born July 31, 1S35, spent most of his youth in the French settlement 
at the mouth of the Gaboon on the west coast of Africa. He came to 
the United States in 1852, and was naturalized. In 1855 he went to 
Africa, and traveled 8,000 miles among different tribes with no white 
man in his company. He was nearly four years on this expedition, 
in which time he shot and stuffed over 2,000 birds (of which sixty 
were previously unknown), and killed over 1,000 quadrupeds,— among 
them several gorillas, never before hunted, and probably never before 
seen, by a white man. The history of this expedition ("Explorations 
and Adventures in Equatorial Africa)" awakened a bitter contro- 
versy in England, but Du Chaillu's veracity and correctness of 
observation were amply vindicated by other and later explorers. He 
went to Africa again in 1363 to explore more fully the land of his first 
adventures, and, after various mishaps and losses, came back in 1865 
with abundant confirmation of his first work. "A Journey to Ashan- 
go Land" relates the story of this visit. In 1872-3 he visited Scandi- 
navia, and, a few years later, went again through Sweden, Norway, 
Finland, and Lapland, and gathered material for two romantic vol- 
umes—" Land of the Midnight Sun." 

BOONE, Daniel, was born in Pennsylvania, Feb. 11, 
1735. He was foremost among the many adventurous men who led 
the advance guard of settlers in Kentucky and Missouri. He was 
often in deadly conflict with the Indians, several times a captive, 
and for years was constantly in peril or liable to attack. He went to 
Kentucky in 1769. In 1792 he lost his well- selected home, not having 
a legal title, and, in disgust, went into the wilderness west of the 
Mississippi,— a region then under the dominion of Spain. The Spanish 
government gave him a large tract of land for certain military ser- 
vices, but this also he lost by some technicality as to title. In 1812 
Congress by special act confirmed to him a title to a landed estate for 
his eminent service to the public. He died in Charette, Mo. , Sept. 26, 
1820. In 1S45 the remains of Boone and his wife were removed to 
Frankfort, Kentucky. 

FREMONT, John Charles, was born in Savannah, 

Ga., Jan. 21, 1813. His father was a Frenchman — his mother, a Vir- 
ginian. He entered Charleston ( S. C.) College at fifteen years of age, 
but, after awhile, was dismissed for neglect of studies and disregard 
of rules. At twenty he became teacher of mathematics on board a 
sloop of war, and was absent two years, cruising along the coast of 
South America. On his return, he secured a professorship of math- 
ematics in the navy. Soon abandoning the sea, he became a civil 
engineer on a line of railway. In 1838-9 he explored the country be- 
tween the Missouri River and the British hue. In 1812 he led an 



46 



TRAVELERS AND EXPLORERS. 



exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains. In 1843 he led a second 
expedition under the direction of the government. Starting in May 
with thirty-nine men, he reached the Great Salt Lake, Sept. 6 ; from 
thence he proceeded to the head waters of the Columbia River, and 
followed down to Fort Vancouver. Taking a south-east route through 
unknown and trackless regions, he found himself in midwinter in a 
desert, with no prospect but death for all his party. Making astro- 
nomical observations, he found his latitude that of the bay of San 
Francisco,— from which he was separated by a range of snow-covered 
mountains so perilous that no Indian could be hired to act as guide in 
crossing them. Fremont undertook the passage of the mountains 
without a guide, and in forty days was at Sutter's Fort on the Sacra- 
mento. The expedition returned via Salt Lake, having been absent 
fourteen months. In the spring of 1845, Fremont was sent to explore 
portions of Oregon and California. While near Tlamath Lake, May 
9, 1846, despatches from Washington ordered him to look after the 
United States interests in Calif ornia,— then Mexican territory, but 
liable to pass into the control of England. In a month all Mexican 
authority was driven out of Northern California, and, July 4, 1846, 
Captain Fremont was elected Governor by the American settlers. 
Jan. 13, 1847, California was ceded to the United States by a treaty. 
In 1848 Fremont took another route for the Pacific along the head- 
waters of the Rio Grande, through the country of the hostile Utes, 
Apaches, and Comanches. All of his animals and one third of his 
men perished in this expedition, and one party of his followers, sent 
to relieve another party, were driven even to cannibalism. Fremont 
reached California in the spring of 1849, and was elected United States 
Senator in the following December. He was a leader in the party 
that secured constitutional prohibition of slavery in California, and 
this lost him a senatorial re-election. In June, 1853, he was sur- 
veying a Southern Pacific railway route. In this work, his company 
lived fifty days on horse flesh, and for forty -eight hours at a time were 
without food of any kind. In 1856 he received the first Republican 
nomination for the Presidency, and had a popular vote of 1,341,264. 
At the outbreak of the Rebellion, he was made a major-general, and 
put in command of the western district. In August, 1861, he issued a 
military order emancipating the slaves of rebels in arms. This order 
was annulled by the president, and Gen. Fremont was relieved of his 
command. Later, he received another command, but soon resigned 
for what he deemed a military slight. In 1878 he was made Governor 
of Arizona. 

TAYLOR, Bayard, poet, novelist, journalist, lecturer, 

and traveler, was born at Kennett Square, Chester Co., Penn., Jan. 
11, 1825. While a boy his reading was poetry, history, and travels. 
At nineteen, he published a small volume of fifteen poems. His 



INVENTORS. 47 



principal poetical works are f ' Poems of the Orient," "The Masque 
of the Gods," " Home Pastorals," and "Prince Deukalion." Among 
his novels are "The Story of Kennett," "John Godfrey's Fortune," 
and "Hannah Thurston." Some two years before his majority he 
bought his time, and went to Europe. He made an extensive pe- 
destrian tour on the continent, occupying two years, and wrote 
"Views Afoot," supporting himself by letter- writing for newspapers. 
At twenty-three years of age, he was an assistant editor of "The 
Tribune," on a salary of $625, with a prospective increase to $800, — 
"a glorious chance" as he said. He went to California in 1849 to 
write up that country for the Tribune. After another year in Eu- 
rope, he stepped into fame and fortune on the lecture platform. In 

1851 he ascended the Nile. From Egypt he went to Scandinavia. In 

1852 he went across Asia to Calcutta, and thence to China, where he 
joined Com. Perry's expedition to Japan. In 1862-3 he was Secretary 
of the American Legation at St. Petersburg. In 1874 he was again in 
Egypt, and the same year attended the millennial celebration of Ice- 
land. He honored himself and his native land by his "Centennial 
Ode " at the Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876. Among his volumes 
of travels are " Summer and Winter Pictures of Sweden, Denmark, 
and Lapland," "Egypt and Iceland," and "The Lands of the Sara- 
cens." In the days of great financial prosperity he built "Cedar- 
croft," adjoining his native acres. The enterprise bankrupted him. 
Four years before his death, he began a ' ■ Life of Goethe and Schil- 
ler," but, like many greatest projects of a hfe-time, it was left 
unfinished. He was appointed United States Minister to Germany in 
1878, and there he died in the same year, Dec. 22,— not quite fifty- 
four years of age. His industry was amazing ; his life was too 
short. 



INVENTORS. 

GALILEI, Galileo, one of the very few untitled men 
whom later ages always call by their Christian names, was born 
at Pisa, Italy, Feb. 15, 1564,— the year of Angelo's death, and of 
Shakspeare's birth. His father sought to educate him for a physician, 
but nature's endowments made him a philosDpher. At nineteen years 
of age, noticing the regular swinging of a lamp in the cathedral, he 
caught the idea of measuring time by the pendulum,— though it was 
not applied to clock-work for fifty years. By dropping unequal 
weights from the leaning tower at Pisa, he demonstrated that the 
velocity of falling bodies is equal. In 1592 he was appointed professor 
of mathematics in the university of Padua. This appointment was 
for six years, and was twice renewed. The crowds that came to hear 



48 INVENTORS. 



him were sometimes so great that he had to lecture in the open air. 
In 1609 a report reached him that a Dutchman had constructed an 
instrument that made distant objects seem near. With this hint, 
Galileo set to work and made a telescope,— it was simply a leaden 
organ pipe with a plano-convex glass at one end, and a plano-concave 
at the other. This invention led the Senate of Venice to confirm his 
professorship for life, with his salary increased from 200 to 1,000 
florins. This year (1609), with telescopes of larger power, he began 
to explore the wonders of the heavens which no man had ever seen 
before,— the satellites of Jupiter, and the myriads of stars in the 
Milky Way. These and other discoveries led him to accept the long 
rejected theory of Copernicus. His growing popularity made him 
many bitter enemies, and, in 1616, they had him arrested for teaching 
that the earth moves, and that the sun, as a center of a system, is 
stable, and he was forbidden to so teach. In 1633 he was again arrested 
on a charge of violation of his pledge in publishing his astronomical 
views. He was condemned for his so-called religious heresy, com- 
manded to abjure his belief as to the earth and sun, ordered to 
prison, and required once a week for three years to recite the seven 
penitential psalms. He abjured, declared his detestation of his 
theory, and promised, on bended knees and in sackcloth, to perform 
the penance; but rising to his feet he affirmed in an undertone, "It 
does move, for all that." His actual imprisonment was for four days, 
but he was under constant surveillance and much restraint during 
the rest of his life. He spent his last years in his home at Arcetri 
near Florence, where he was visited by Milton and other eminent 
men of that age. He became totally blind, and almost totally deaf. 
He died, at the age of seventy- eight, Jan. 8, 1642,— the year of New- 
ton's birth. Galileo invented, improved, or embellished the barome- 
ter and thermometer, the pendulum and the magnet, hydraulic and 
military machines, the compass, telescope, ancUmicroscope. One 
great and valuable monument of Galileo's work, to wit, the whole 
series of his observations of the satellites of Jupiter, after having 
been lost to the world for two centuries, was found in the library of 
Pitti Palace. 

NEWTON, Sir Isaac, one of the most eminent of 

Englishmen, was born at Woolsthorpe, Dec. 25, 1642, and died in 
Kensington, March 20, 1727. While a lad at school, he was ill-treated 
by a classmate next above himself, and he resolved to punish him by 
becoming the better scholar. This resolution made the rather dull 
boy the foremost scholar in the whole school. He cared little for 
play, but was skillful in mechanical contrivances. He arranged a set 
of pins on the adjacent houses in such a way that their shadows 
marked the hours of the day,— this served as a kind of town clock, 
aud was known as " Isaac's Dial." As early as his twenty-second 



INVENTORS. 49 



year, he invented the binomial theorem. His efforts to focalize the 
rays of light revealed to him that '■' some rays are more refrangible 
than others." In 1666 or earlier, he conceived the identity of gravity 
with the force that holds the planets in their orbits, and demonstrated 
the theory some fifteen years later. In 1668 he completed the first 
reflecting telescope ever directed toward the heavens. In 1686 he 
brought out his famous and profound " Principia." He was elected 
president of the "Royal Society" in 1703, and annually re-elected until 
his death. He was knighted by Queen Anne in 1705. He never mar- 
ried, never wore spectacles, lived to be eighty-four years old, and 
left an estate of 32,000 pounds. 

FRANKLIN", Benjamin, an American inventor, phi- 
losopher, and statesman, was bom in Boston, Jan. 17, 1706. At 
twelve years of age, he was apprenticed to his brother, the publisher 
of the New England Courant, — the second newspaper in America. 
"While a printer's boy, Benjamin wrote an article, disguising his pen- 
manship, and slipped it under the office door, and, the next day, had 
the satisfaction of hearing his production highly praised and spoken 
of as probably written by this or that leading man in Boston. At 
seventeen, he left his brother and went to New York ; but, finding no 
employment, proceeded to Philadelphia, where he arrived after vari- . 
ous adventures and hardships with only a dollar in his pocket. The 
governor of the province proposed to assist Franklin to set up in 
business for himself. This proposal induced him to go to England to 
purchase types and other material, but, arrived in England, he dis- 
covered that his patron had neither influence nor means to help him. 
After a year and a half in England, he returned to Philadelphia, 
wiser but not richer. A friend helped him to establish the " Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette," which Franklin managed with great ability. In 1732 
he began the publication of an almanac under the name of Richard 
Saunders,— it was continued twenty-five years as "Poor Richard's 
Almanac." He became one of the most eminent citizens of Philadel- 
phia, interested and active in every public enterprise. He started the 
first public library and projected the first fire insurance company in 
America. He was the founder of the " University of Pennsylvania," 
and of the " American Philosophical Society." He attended school 
only in the years of his childhood, but he was a great reader, and 
always studious. Yale and Harvard and Oxford and Edinburgh gave 
him honorary degrees. In 1752 he proved the identity of lightning and 
the electric spark, and invented the lightning rod. His studies in 
electricity placed him in the front rank of scholars in his day. He 
was the first to make observations of the Gulf Stream. He was early 
in public life. For more than twenty years, he was the deputy post- 
master-general of the colonies. In the "French War," he was the 
leader whose counsels defeated the French. He visited Braddock to 



50 INVENTORS. 



dissuade him from his rash and fatal expedition. He visited the home 
government on missions of redress for several of the colonies. He 
stood at the bar of the House of Commons, and urged the repeal of 
the ' • Stamp Act. " When the Revolutionary war broke out, Franklin 
was one of the foremost in advocating American independence. He 
aided in drafting the Declaration of Independence, and was one of its 
signers, and, when the war closed, Franklin was one of the American 
commissioners to sign the treaty of peace, Nov. 30, 1782. Returning to 
the United States in 1785, he was made "President of Pennsylvania." 
At the age of eighty-two, he was an active member of the convention 
which framed the federal constitution. He was a noble American,— 
never ashamed of his citizenship or of a citizen's garb. At an evening 
party in Paris, he was pointed out with this question, "Who is that ex- 
traordinary brown-coated man? " The reply was : " Softly, madam, 
that is the famous American, who bottles up thunder and lightning." 
His last public act ( Feb. 12, 1789) was to place his name, as president 
of the Anti-Slavery Society, to a petition to Congress for the suppres- 
sion of the slave-trade. He put in circulation a thousand homespun 
truths, all teaching economy, industry, and thrift,— a legacy to the 
world richer than gold. There are more than one hundred and fifty 
counties, towns, and villages in the United States named in honor 
of Franklin. Perhaps no man was more esteemed in Europe and 
America. His faculties and affections were unimpaired to the last. 
He died in Philadelphia, April 17, 1790, at the age of eighty-four years. 
Twenty thousand people assembled to do honor to his remains. 

GUTENBERG, Johann, the reputed inventor of 
movable types was born in Mentz, Germany, about 1400, and died 
there, Feb. 24, 1468. He became a^citizen of Strasburg, and there, for 
many years, devoted himself to mechanical experiments. His inven- 
tion cannot be traced to its precise date, but as early as 1438 he had 
a printing press, movable types, and other appliances of his art. In 
1450 he had perfected the metallic type, and in 1455, had printed the 
first book, — an edition of the Latin Bible, twenty-eight copies of 
which are yet extant. In twenty years, the new art had furnished 
more copies of the Bible than had been made in all the centuries be- 
fore. In 1480 there were ninety-four printing-offices in Europe. The 
number of books annually produced in the civilized world at the 
present time, may be estimated at upward of three quarters of a mil- 
lion. In 1S37 a bronze statue of Gutenberg, by Thorwaldsen, was 
erected in Mentz, and, in 1840, Strasburg honored itself as the birth- 
place of the art of printing by erecting a statue of the great inventor. 

ARKWRIGHT, Sir Richard, the founder of the Eng- 
lish factory system, was born at Preston, England, Dec. 23, 1732, 
and died at Cromford, Aug. 3, 1792. His parents were too poor to 



INVENTORS. 51 



give him any education, and not till after he was fifty years old did 
he acquire the rudiments of learning. He began business as a bar- 
ber—shaving for a penny. At twenty-eight years of age, he became 
a traveling hair merchant. His first inventive experiments were 
attempts to solve the problem of perpetual motion, in which he spent 
what property he had accumulated. Thinking to turn her husband's 
attention to something more profitable, his wife burned his models, 
and he left her. Arkwright next became a clock-maker. Up to this 
time, cotton had never been used as a warp in any English cotton 
mills, and it was considered impossible to make a thread of cotton 
fine and strong enough for the warp. In 1768 Arkwright produced 
the needed spinning frame by which the cotton thread could be spun 
of any required fineness and strength, and with immense velocity. 
He had to meet the bitterest hostility in defending his patent, and in 
competing with other manufacturers. He triumphed over all, and 
gathered a fortune of £500,000. He was knighted in 1786. His in- . 
vention enables one man to do as much as one hundred and thirty 
could do before, and it is estimated that 40,000,000 hands could scarce- 
ly do the spinning now done by machinery in England. 

WATT, James, was born in Greenock, Scotland, 

Jan. 19, 1736, and died near Birmingham, England, Aug. 25, 1819. At 
fourteen years of age, he constructed an electrical machine. When 
about twenty-one years of age, he became instrument-maker for the 
university of Glasgow. In 1758 he began his experiments with steam 
as a propelling power for land carriages. In 1774 he became a partner 
with Matthew Boulton in the Soho works near Birmingham, and the 
next year, they began the manufacture of improved steam engines. 
Watt invented several of the most important parts of the engine now 
in use. He was thirty years in perfecting his condensing engine. 
His road engine was patented in 1784, and, in the same year, he ap- 
plied steam to house warming. He was buried beside Boulton in 
Handsworth Church,— his statue is in Westminster. 

WHITNEY, Eli, whose invention of the cotton gin 
made a new era in the production of cotton, and marked an era in 
the history of slavery in the United States, was born in Westborough, 
Mass. , Dec. 8, 1765, and died in New Haven, Conn., Jan. 8, 1825. After 
graduating at Yale College in 1792, he went to Georgia and studied 
law. At that time, the cotton fiber and seed had to be separated by 
hand, and a pound of cleaned cotton was a day's work for a negro 
woman. Whitney invented the cotton-ginning machine in 1793, and 
immediately the cost of producing cotton greatly lessened, and the 
use of cotton correspondingly increased, and, at the same time, the 
value of slave labor in the cotton fields was likewise enhanced. Ru- 
mors of his forth-coming machine got abroad, and, before it was 



52 INVENTORS. 



quite finished, his shop was broken open, and his model carried off, 
and several machines, according to his model, were made and put 
in operation before he could get the invention patented. The in- 
ventor never received much money for his work, but had years of 
litigation in trying to get his due. He subsequently amassed a for- 
tune in manufacturing fire-arms for the government. He was the 
first who made each single portion of the gun adapted to any one of 
thousands of guns in process of manufacture at the same time. 

STEPHENSON, George, an English railway engi- 
neer, and the inventor of the locomotive, was born at Wylam, June 
9, 1781, and died near Chesterfield, Aug. 12, 1848. For several years 
he worked as fireman at various collieries. His mechanical genius 
enabled him to repair his engines, and to devise improvements, and, 
finally, to construct a locomotive, which he completed in July, 1814. 
This was the first locomotive made with smooth wheels. November 
18, 1822, he opened a railway of eight miles for the Hetton Colliery, 
using five of his locomotives, while stationary engines were used for 
the heavy grades. In 1824 he began the manufacture of locomotives 
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. The next year, he was made chief engi- 
neer of the Liverpool and Manchester railway. It was Stephenson 
who persuaded the directors to use only locomotives on this road, 
and to offer a prize of £500 for the best railway engine. Oct. 6, 1829, 
the road was ready for the trial of engines, and the "Rocket," con- 
structed by himself and his son Robert, was adjudged the best,— 
averaging fourteen miles an hour, its highest speed being twenty -nine 
miles. The road was opened Sept. 15, 1830, equipped with eight of 
Stephenson's locomotives. Thus after fifteen years of study, poverty, 
hard work, and many and great discouragements, George Stephenson 
became the acknowledged founder of the railway. For many years 
thereafter, he was constantly employed in Great Britain and on the 
continent in constructing railways. His experience in mines led him 
to invent a safety lamp, which is still in use in the Killingworth 
collieries. It was a sharply-contested question whether his invention 
or Sir Humphrey Davy's had precedence in date. Probably the in-, 
vention belonged honestly to each. The knighthood was offered to 
Stephenson, but declined. 

FULTON, Robert, an American inventor, chiefly 
noted for being the first to apply steam power to navigation, was 
born in Little Britain, Penn. in 1765. At seventeen years of age, he 
went to Philadelphia and became a painter of miniatures. Having 
laid by some money, he placed his widowed mother on a farm, and 
went to London and studied under West. Leaving art, he took up 
civil engineering, and also became interested in steam navigation. 
As early as 1793, he wrought out in his own mind some of the essential 



INVENTORS. 53 



ideas of his great invention. At Birmingham, he became acquainted 
with Watt, and familiarized himself with the engine as far as it was 
perfected. At this period, he devised an improved mill for sawing 
marble, and received a vote of thanks and an honorary medal from 
the British society for the promotion of arts and commerce. Also he 
patented machines for spinning flax and making ropes, and an ex- 
cavator for scooping out the channels of canals. In 1797 he went to 
Paris, and there invented torpedoes for the destruction of ships. In 
Paris he became acquainted with Robert R. Livingston, and so inter- 
ested him in steam navigation, that he sought and obtained of the 
legislature of New York the exclusive privilege of navigating the 
waters of the state by steam, on condition that a twenty-ton boat, 
capable of four miles an hour, be put on the Hudson within a year. 
This charter was renewed several times. In 1S03 Fulton launched his 
first boat,— sixty-six feet long and eight feet wide. It proved to be 
J;oo slow. The same year, he ordered a larger engine of Watt and 
Boulton, and received it in 1806. The next year, he launched the 
" Clermont," which made a speed of five miles an hour. Steam navi- 
gation was now a demonstrated success. Much litigation arose over 
the right of the state to grant the monopoly to Livingston and Fulton; 
but the possession of the water-ways of New York remained in their 
hands until Fulton's death. During the war of 1812, Fulton con- 
structed a war steamer whose speed was two and a half miles an 
hour against the current, — regarded at that time as a marvel, and a 
most formidable engine of defence. Fulton died in New York, Feb. 
24, 1815. 

MORSE, Samuel Finley Breese, an American in- 
ventor whose monument is in all the world, was born in Charlestown, 
Mass., April 27, 1791. His father was Rev. Jedediah Morse, whose 
geography was a standard school-book for many years. He gradu- 
ated at Yale College in 1810,— where his father graduated twenty- 
seven years before. For fifteen years, he devoted himself to art ; 
studying four years under Washington Allston and Benjamin West ; 
earning his first money as a portrait painter in various towns in New 
Hampshire, and, later, pursuing the same art for several winters in 
Charleston, S. C. ; giving before the New York Atheneum the first 
course of lectures on the fine arts ever given in America ; becoming 
the first president of the National Academy of Design, and being re- 
elected annually for sixteen years, and holding the art lectureship in 
the university of the city of New York. In 1826-7 he began to give 
his special attention to electricity. In 1S32, on a return voyage from 
France, he caught the idea of the telegraph essentially as it now 
exists, and immediately made drawings to illustrate the working of 
his idea. A part of the machinery was made in New York in that 
year, but not completed till Nov., 1835, when he put up a half mile of 



54 INVENTORS. 



wire in a room, and exhibited the telegraph in operation. In 1837 he 
exhibited his invention in the university of New York. He could 
obtain no patent in England or France, and it was not till the closing 
evening session of Congress, March 3, 1843, that the United States 
government was persuaded to appropriate $30,000 for an experi- 
mental line from Washington to Baltimore. The work was completed 
May 27, 1844, demonstrating the utility of the Morse system of electro- 
magnetic telegraphs. Submarine telegraphy also originated with 
Prof. Morse, who laid lines in New York harbor in the autumn of 
1842. In a letter to the Secretary of the United States treasury, dated 
Aug. 10, 1843, he suggested the project of the Atlantic telegraph, 
which was realized in 18G6. Prof. Morse was in Paris in 1839 and met 
Daguerre, and, from drawings furnished by the latter, he constructed, 
on his return to New York, the first daguerreotype apparatus and 
took the first sun pictures ever taken in America. Few men, and 
perhaps none, ever received such honors as came to Morse during his 
life-time. Almost all the titles of honor ever given in Europe were 
showered upon him. Gold medals and banquets were given him at 
home and abroad. In 1858, at the instance of Napoleon III., the 
representatives of France, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Sar- 
dinia, Turkey, Tuscany, and the Holy See, met in Paris to decide 
upon a testimonial for Prof. Morse,— and the result was a gift of 
400,000 francs as a personal reward for his labors. In June, 1871, a 
bronze statue of Morse, the gift of telegraph employees, was un- 
veiled in Central Park by Wm. Cullen Bryant. Ten months later, 
April 2, 1872, this greatest inventor died in New York City, almost 
eighty- one years old. 

DAGUERRE, Louis Jacques Mande, one of the in- 
ventors of sun pictures, was born at Cormeilles, France, in 1789, and 
died July 12, 1851. He began his career as a scene-painter. Having 
assisted in painting panoramas of Rome, London, Naples, and other 
great cities, he conceived the idea of throwing colored lights and 
shadows upon them, thus producing the various changes of the day 
and seasons. In 1829 Daguerre and Niepce united their efforts and 
skill to develop and perfect what each had separately experimented 
upon for years,— a method of obtaining permanent, f ac-simile copies 
of objects by the chemical action of the sun. After the death of 
Niepce in 1833, Daguerre continued his work, and made such im- 
provements that Niepce' s son consented that the invention should be 
known by Daguerre' s name alone. The wonderful invention was 
announced to the academy of science in Jan., 1839. The same year, 
Daguerre offered to disclose his invention for an annuity of 4,000 
francs for Niepce's son, and a like annuity for himself. Subsequently 
he engaged to make public all knowledge he had of dioramas, and all 



INVENTORS. 55 



future improvements he might make in the daguerreotype, and his 
annuity was fixed at 6,000 francs. 

GOODYEAR, Charles, was born in New Haven, 

Conn., Dec. 29, 1800, and died in New York, July 1, 1860. In 1830 he 
turned his attention to the improvement of India rubber goods. His 
first success svas in 1836, when he found that by dipping rubber in 
nitric acid it became non-adhesive. In Jan., 1839, after many experi- 
ments, he discovered by accident the vulcanizing process, which has 
made India rubber useful in almost countless ways. The Goodyear 
patents arc more than sixty in number, but the inventor never reaped 
any adequate pecuniary reward of his labors. His invention has 
been called "a cloth impervious to water ; a paper that will not tear; 
a parchment that will not crease ; leather which neither rain nor sun 
will injure ; ebony that can be run in a mold ; ivory that can be 
worked like wax ; wood that never cracks, shrinks, nor decays ; an 
elastic metal." Daniel Webster's last appearance at the bar was in 
defence of Goodyear's patent, and, in his argument, the prince of 
advocates said of his client, "It would be painful to speak of his 
extreme want ; the destitution of his family, half clad, he picking up. 
little billets of wood from the way- side to warm his household ; suf- 
fering reproach,— not harsh reproach, for no one could bestow that 
on him,— and receiving indignation and ridicule from his friends." 
He lived to see his invention applied to nearly five hundred uses, and 
giving employment, in England, France, Germany, and the United 
States, to 60,000 persons. 

HOWE, Elias, the inventor of the sewing machine, 
was born in Spencer, Mass., July 9, 1819, and died in Brooklyn, N. Y., 
Oct. 3, 1867. His life is the story of poverty, hardship, perseverance, 
and success. At sixteen years of age, he went to Lowell and worked 
in a machine shop, and, later, he was a machinist in Boston. His first 
sewing machine was completed in May, 1845, and patented Sept. 10, 
1846 ; but he could find no clothing- house that would use his invention. 
Years passed before it came into use at all in the United States. After 
constructing four machines, he went to England and remained two 
years, and then returned entirely destitute, and resumed his trade 
in Boston. He sold his patent in England for a pittance, and had to 
pawn his original machine and his United States letters patent to get 
funds to return home. Meanwhile, other parties had infringed upon 
his patent, and were beginning to introduce sewing machines. Years 
of poverty and of expensive litigation followed, in defending his pa- 
tent, and securing his royalty, but, unlike Goodyear, he succeeded 
in maintaining his patent-rights, and his fortune rapidly increased to 
millions. He went as a private in a Connecticut regiment in the civil 
war, and, when the pay of the regiment was delayed, he advanced 



56 SCIENTISTS. 



the necessary funds. The sewing machine is now doing work to the 
amount of $500,000,000, annually. 

EDISON, Thomas Alva, whose patents outnumber 

those of any other inventor, and rank with the most wonderful of 
this inventive age, was one of America's many very poor boys who 
became very eminent men. He was born in Milan, Ohio, Feb. 11, 
1847. His father taught him to read and write, and, though unable 
to give him but two months at school, encouraged him in studious 
reading in spare hours by paying him a small sum of money for every 
book that he read thoroughly. At twelve years of age, he was a 
train-boy on the Grand Trunk between Detroit and Port Huron, and 
managed to save money enough to buy a small farm, which he still 
owns. He published a newspaper, eight by twelve inches, having a 
font of type and a printing press in his corner of the baggage car. 
He also set up a laboratory in that same corner, and experimented at 
odd moments in chemicals until one day a bottle of phosphorus fell 
and broke and set fire to the car. This ended his railroading. Soon 
after, having snatched a child of the station agent off the track at the 
utmost risk of his own life, and declining any reward for the heroic 
deed, the grateful father offered to teach him telegraphy. In this, 
young Edison found his path to fame and fortune. He acquired a 
passion for the study of electricity and its applications. He became 
an expert in telegraphy. Happening in the Gold Room of Wall St. 
one day, when all was confusion because the gold indicator was out 
of order, he asked permission to examine the machine, and, in live 
minutes, he had it in perfect order. Soon after, he brought out his 
first invention, a telegraphic machine to report, from a distance of 
hundreds of miles, the prices of stocks instantly printed on slips of 
paper. Next came a chemical telegraph, transmitting 2,500 words a 
minute. Before he was thirty-four years old, he had taken out more 
than 270 patents. Among these are the Quadruplex Telegraph, for 
sending messages in opposite directions at the same time through the 
same wire ; the Microphone, which augments weak sounds, making 
the tread of a fly as audible as that of a horse ; the Phonograph ; 
the Telephone; and the Electric Light. His home and work-shops 
at Menlo Park, N. J. , have been visited by many scientists. Of living 
inventors, he is the foremost. Each clay's toil seems to open up new 
possibilities to his inventive genius. 



SCIENTISTS. 

HARVEY, William, the first anatomist and physician 
of his time, was born in Folkestone, England, April 1, 1578, and died 



SCIENTISTS. 



in London, June 3, 1657. His academical education was pursued in 
England ; his medical education, in the university of Padua. In 1607 
he was admitted a fellow of the royal college of physicians. For 
thirty-five years, he was physician to St. Bartholomew's hospital. 
His great discovery of the circulation of the blood is supposed to 
have been made in 1619, though not published till 1628. For many 
years, he experienced the treatment that many innovators and dis- 
coverers have endured, and his medical practice declined, as he 
predicted when publishing his discovery ; but he lived to see his 
ideas universally accepted, and, five years before his death, had the 
rare honor of having his statue placed in the college hall, with an in- 
scription testifying to the value of his discoveries. 

JENNER, Edward, the discoverer of vaccination, 
was born at Berkeley in Gloucestershire, England, May 17, 1749, and 
. died there, Jan. 26, 1823. At fourteen years of age, he was apprenticed 
to a surgeon for seven years. At twenty-one he went to London, 
and became a pupil of John Hunter, then rising into eminence as a 
surgeon and physiologist. Jenner was assigned the honor of ar- 
ranging the specimens of natural history which Captain Cook carried 
to England from his first voyage of discovery, and was offered the 
position of naturalist in Cook's second expedition, but wisely kept to 
his chosen profession. While in his minority, he heard a milkmaid 
say she could not take the small-pox, because she had had the cow- 
pox. This casual remark led Jenner in later years to his discovery. 
Following Dr. Hunter's advice, "not to think, but try," he devoted 
years to his work ; and at last proved, by many uniform experiments, 
that a person inoculated for cow-pox could not receive the small- 
pox. The discovery was established as early as 1796. Two years 
later, lie went to London to acquaint the medical fraternity of the 
metropolis with his new art, but the city physicians rejected it, and 
the pulpits of the city denounced it as " diabolical." Within a year, 
however, seventy-three of the most eminent practitioners announced 
their acceptance of Jenner' s theory. Next came attempts to rob 
Jenner of the honors and rewards of his discovery. He received 
nearly £40,000 from the home government and from India in token of 
his invaluable service to mankind. In 1858 his statue was placed in 
Trafalgar square, London. Cuvier said, "If vaccine were the only 
discovery of this epoch, it would serve to make it illustrious for- 
ever." 

GALL, Franz Joseph, the founder of phrenology, 

was born at Tiefenbrunn in Baden, Germany, March 9, 1758, and died 
at Montrouge near Paris, Aug. 22, 1828. His studies were in literature, 
natural history, anatomy, and medicine, — receiving his medical di- 
ploma at the age of twenty-seven. Observing differences in character 



58 SCIENTISTS. 



and talents among his mates, he began to inquire for the causes. By- 
degrees, he came to suspect that differences in intellectual endow- 
ments and moral qualities corresponded with external peculiarities 
of the head. This led him to examine the heads of all who had any- 
marked mental peculiarity. He visited prisons, asylums, and seats 
of learning for this purpose. He studied, and was the first to an- 
nounce, the true structure of the brain. After some twenty years, 
he claimed to have determined intellectual dispositions correspond- 
ing to about twenty organs, and that he had found the locations of 
those faculties. The theory of phrenologists is this, — that the dis- 
tance from the spinal axis to the surface of the head, at any point, 
indicates the relative prominence of the organ located at that point. 
In 1796 he began to lecture upon his peculiar theory in Vienna. In 
1802 the Austrian government forbade his lecturing as dangerous to 
religion. Then he traveled in other countries of Northern Europe 
presenting his views. His earliest notable disciple was Spurzheim, 
who became his associate in travels and lecturing for several years. 
His last years were spent in France. At his burial, an eminent 
Frenchman said, "A great man has fallen, and France bends in 
sorrow over his grave to do him honor." 

CUVIER, Georges, a French naturalist of German 
ancestry, was born at Montbeliard, Aug. 23, 1769, and thus was only 
eight days younger than Napoleon Bonaparte. He was christened 
Chretien Leopold Frederic Dagobert, but, subsequently, at his moth- 
er's request, he dropped this ponderous name, and substituted Geor- 
ges. While a lad of ten or twelve years, he read one of Buffon's 
works, and this made him a passionate student of natural history. 
Under the patronage of Charles, Duke of Wurtemberg, he went to 
the academy of Stuttgart in 1784. In 1803 he became permanent sec- 
retary of the class of Natural Sciences in the National Institute. He 
reformed the study of natural sciences. Being given but a bone, he 
could construct a correct model of the animal to which it belonged, 
though its species were unknown, and even extinct. Previous natu- 
ralists had described 1,500 specimens of fishes,— Cuvier described 
5,000. Under Bonaparte, he was employed for years in establishing 
schools in Italy and Holland. His brain weighed full sixty -four 
ounces,— a pound more than the average. He was one of the best of 
men ; most brilliant of writers ; soundest of thinkers ; most far- 
sighted of philosophers ; purest of statesmen ; and the greatest 
naturalist of modern times. He was made a Peer of France in 1832, 
and died at Paris, May 13, of that year,— four months previous to 
the death of Sir Walter Scott. 

DAVY, Sir Humphrey, an eminent chemist, was born 
at Penzance, England, Dec. 17, 1778. He studied medicine, but relin- 
quished its practice for more congenial studies in natural science. 



SCIENTISTS. 59 



At twenty years of age, he became assistant in an institution at Clif- 
ton, in which pulmonary diseases were treated by inhaling gases. In 
1799 he made his experiments in laughing gas. The institution rapid- 
ly gained in popularity during Davy's connection with it. In March, 
1S01, he returned to London, and became a lecturer and, soon after, 
professor in the Royal Institute of science, then just founded. His 
lectures were exceedingly popular. From time to time, he pub- 
lished essays in the lines of his studies. His fame spread abroad, 
and he was invited to lecture in Dublin, and, notwithstanding the 
war, was permitted to visit France in the interest of science. In 
May, 1812, a terrific explosion in a colliery, killing ninety-two men, 
led Davy to study the question of the "fire-damp," and to invent the 
miner's safety-lamp. He refused to patent his invention, saying, 
"No, my sole object was to serve the cause of humanity, and if I 
have succeeded I am amply rewarded." The mining proprietors pre- 
-sented him with a service of plate valued at 2,000 pounds. His health 
failing, he spent two or three years in travel in different parts of the 
continent. He died in Geneva, May 29, 1829, and, according to his 
wish, was there buried. He was knighted in 1812, and created a 
baronet in 1818. He had no superior, if indeed an equal, among the 
chemists of his time. He made many discoveries in this fascinating 
science. 

HUMBOLDT, Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von, 

was born in Berlin, Sept. 14, 1769,— a few weeks later than the birth 
of Cuvier. It could have been aptly and truthfully said of Baron 
Humboldt, as of but few men, he " seeketh and intermeddleth with 
all wisdom." He took the whole realm of nature for his teacher and 
text-book. He traveled extensively, visiting all parts of Europe, and 
much of the Western Continent. From June 1799 to Aug. 1804, five 
years, he was exploring the coast lines, rivers, and mountains of 
Spanish America, making botanical, astronomical, and magnetic ob- 
servations. June 22, 1802, he was on Chimborazo, at a height of 
19,286 feet. His collections in natural science, ethnography, geogra- 
phy, and statistics were greater than all previous travelers had made. 
He developed several new branches of science. He collected 3,500 
new specimens of plants. His writings were numerous, and of great 
scientific value. His last work, "Kosmos," in five volumes, com- 
pleted just before his death, was translated into all the languages of 
Europe, and its publication greatly stimulated scientific research. 
Agassiz said of Humboldt: "The personal influence which he ex- 
erted upon science is incalculable." He slept but four hours in the 
twenty-four. His best books were written at midnight. A traveler, 
just returned from Palestine, called on Humboldt, and this prince of 
scholars appeared so familiarly acquainted with all the streets and 



60 SCIENTISTS. 



points of interest in Jerusalem that the visitor asked him how recent- 
ly lie had been there. Humboldt's answer was, "Sixty years ago I 
planned to visit Palestine, and I prepared myself for the visit." In 
his later years, he occupied a high position at the Prussian court. 
His death occurred May 6, 1859, in his ninetieth year. 

AUDUBON, John James, an American ornithologist, 

was born in Louisiana, May 4, 1780, and died in New York, Jan. 27, 
1851. His interest in birds was a passion. His friends took him to 
France (his father's native land) to be educated in drawing. He col- 
lected thousands of specimens of birds and animals with his own 
hand, and drew them as large as life. He wrote "Ornithological 
Biographies," and "Birds of America." This latter work was issued 
in parts in 1829, and sold by subscription, — each copy costing 
$1,000,— and, of the one hundred and seventy subscribers, nearly 
one half were found in Europe. A new edition of this work ap- 
peared in 1844 in seven volumes. 

MILLER, Hugh, a British geologist, was born at 
Cromarty on the east coast of Scotland, Oct. 10, 1802, and died at 
Portobello, near Edinburgh, Dec. 24, 1856. While a youth, he was 
interested in the rocks, and collected many geological specimens. At 
seventeen, he became a stone-mason, and worked in quarries and 
upon stone structures till he was thirty-four. His evenings and his 
leisure winter days were given to reading the best books of his times. 
He was an observing, thinking, studious mechanic. Combining what 
he read and what he saw, he became an authority in geology before 
he was aware of his attainments. In 1829 he published a volume of 
poems. Leaving his trade, he became a bank-clerk at Cromarty. 
His reading and observation led him to become a writer for periodi- 
cals. In 1840 he became editor of the " Witness." Articles upon the 
"Old Red Sandstone" attracted the attention of savants. "Foot- 
prints of the Creator," "My Schools and Schoolmasters" (autobiogra- 
phy), and " Testimony of the Rocks" are rich contributions not only 
to science but also to literature. He overworked— his mind suf- 
fered—he was found in his room dead, the pistol at his side, and this 
note to his wife : "A fearful dream rises upon me. I cannot bear the 
horrible thought." 

AGASSIZ, Louis John Rudolph, whose name is yet 

peerless in the science of Natural History, was bom in Motiers, 
Switzerland, May 28, 1807. His ancestors for six generations were 
Huguenot clergymen. He received the best scholastic and profession- 
al training in preparation for his chosen life-work as a physician. 
His proficiency in comparative anatomy prepared him, while yet a 
student, to edit the report of a scientific expedition to Brazil. He 



SCIENTISTS. 61 



alone arranged and classified the one hundred and sixteen specimens 
of fishes taken in Brazilian waters. This work made him an authori- 
ty in ichthyology. His next work was a "Natural History of Fresh 
Water Fishes of Europe." His college vacations were spent in ex- 
ploring the lakes and rivers and small streams of Switzerland and 
Southern Germany for fishes. He gave ten years to the study of 
fossil fishes, and embodied the results in a work of five volumes, 
containing 400 plates, and describing 1,000 species. During these 
years a fossil fish-scale was sent him by a friend. Agassiz proceeded 
at once to make a drawing of the fish ; he located the position of 
that one scale, named the fish, described its habits, and published 
his description. Five years after Agassiz had thus risked his repu- 
tation, his friend found a perfect fossil specimen of that extinct 
fish, and sent it to the great scholar. The drawing proved to be 
perfect, not needing the alteration of a single line. In these years 
-he met Humboldt and Cuvier, and with them enjoyed the sympathy 
of enthusiastic scholarship. He became an authority on the subject 
of glaciers. In 1846 he came to America, to give lectures in Boston, 
and to study the natural history and geology of this continent. Find- 
ing here so ample facilities for his study, he made America his home, 
and became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1847 he 
was elected Professor of Zoology and Geology in Harvard College. 
He explored this country extensively, and prepared, in ten volumes, 
"Contributions to the Natural History of the United States." The 
work had 2,500 subscribers in all parts of the United States. His 
influence was far-reaching,— many scholars in all lands are indebted 
to Agassiz. His death occurred at Cambridge, Mass., Dec. 14, 1873. 
He has two notable monuments,— the unhewn block of granite 
brought from the Alps to mark his grave in Mount Auburn, and the 
Agassiz Museum of Harvard College. Agassiz was for years a lead- 
ing spirit in the foremost literary club of Boston. James T. Fields 
was also in the club, and when Fields' wife would ask him, "Had 
you a pleasant club to-day?" this was his frequent answer, "Yes, 
Agassiz was there." 

LIEBIG, Justus von, a German chemist, was born 

in Darmstadt, May 12, 1803, and died in Munich, April 18, 1873. After 
obtaining his medical diploma, he went to Paris and spent two years 
in the study of chemistry. In 1824 he read a paper, at the French 
Institute, on fulminates, which attracted the attention of Humboldt, 
and, by his influence, Liebig was appointed Professor of Chemistry at 
Giessen. He established the first laboratory in Germany for teaching 
practical chemistry. His influence and his publications led several 
German universities to establish professorships of chemistry. He 
aided in projecting a Journal of Pharmacy, and, for nearly forty 



62 SCIENTISTS. 



years, was a frequent contributor to its pages. His last contribution, 
in March, 1872, was a notice of the discovery of chloroform made by 
himself in 1831, and not by Soubeiran as was generally supposed. 
His chemical studies were chiefly in the interest of practical life. He 
constantly sought to utilize the unseen powers of nature. He was 
made a baron of Hesse-Darmstadt in 1845. Professorships were of- 
fered him in England, at Heidelberg, Vienna, and other places. He 
remained at Giessen about twenty-five years. In 1852 he accepted 
the professorship of chemistry at Munich. In 1860 he became presi- 
dent of the academy of sciences at Munich. 

DARWIN, Charles Robert, an English naturalist, 

was born in Shrewsbury, Feb. 12, 1809, and died April 20, 1882. After 
taking his degree of B. A. at Christ's College, Cambridge, in 1831, he 
volunteered as naturalist to accompany Captain Fitzroy in the ship 
Beagle, on an exploring expedition round the globe. His voyage 
began Dec. 27, 1831, and ended Oct. 2, 1836. In these five years he 
examined the greater part of the South American coast, the Pacific 
islands, Australia, New Zealand, and Mauritius. Among his scientific 
writings are " Structure and Distribution of Coral Reefs," "Zoology 
of the Voyage of the Beagle," "Variation of Animals and Plants 
under Domestication," "The Descent of Man," and "Origin of 
Species by means of Natural Selection." This last work, published 
in 18o9, was translated into French, German, Dutch, Italian, and 
Russian, and has been the subject of more reviews, pamphlets, and 
separate books than any other volume of the age. 

CARPENTER, William Benjamin, an eminent Eng- 
lish physiologist, and the foremost of microscopists, was born in 
Exeter, Oct. 29, 1813. He Avas educated at Edinburgh, and took his 
medical degree in 1839. He became the lecturer on medical jurispru- 
dence in the medical school at Bristol, and, in 1844, was appointed 
Professor of Physiology in the Royal Institution of London. In 1849 
he wrote the prize essay on "Alcoholic Liquors," — the prize being 
one hundred guineas. He has published "Principles of Human 
Physiology," "Principles of Comparative Physiology," and "The 
Microscope and its Revelations." His most important original re- 
searches are "Structure of Shells," "Development of Purpura 
Lapillus," and "Structure, Functions, and General History of Foram- 
inifera." For many years he edited the "British and Foreign Medico- 
Chirurgical Review." In later years he has specially studied the 
subject of submarine animal life. He died Nov. 10, 1885. 

TYNDALL, John, a native of County Carlow, Ire- 
land, was born Aug. 21, 1820. He graduated at the university of 
Marburg in 1851. In 1853 he became Professor of Natural Philosophy 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 63 

in the Royal Institution, London. His studies have not been confined 
to any special branch of physics. The molecular constitution of 
matter, magnetism and electricity, the radiance of heat, the acoustic 
transparency of the atmosphere, and the nature of glaciers have been 
subjects of his investigations. He visited the United States in 1872, 
and gave a course of lectures in several cities,— the proceeds of 
which, $13,000, were given for a fund to promote the study of natural 
sciences in America. He holds a front rank among popular scientific 
lecturers. He is a strenuous advocate of the doctrine of evolution. 
"Tyndall's prayer test" occasioned a notable controversy in 1872. 
His "Belfast Address," in 1874, was bitterly denounced as material- 
istic. His scientific publications are numerous, including "Glaciers 
of the Alps," "Mountaineering in 1861," "Sound" (translated into 
Chinese at government expense), "Forms of Water in Clouds and 
Rivers, Ice and Glaciers," "Lectures on Light," and '* Fragments of 
Science for Unscientific People." 

GRAY, Asa, the leading botanist of the age, was born 
in Paris, Oneida Co., New York, Nov. 18, 1810. He was graduated in 
medicine in 1831, but abandoned medical practice for the study of 
botany. In 1842 he took the chair of natural history in Harvard Col- 
lege, and was in active service as teacher for thirty-one years. In 
1874 he was made a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, in place of 
Professor Agassiz. His publications, " How Plants Grow," "How 
Plants Behave," "Lessons in Botany," and "Structural and System- 
atic Botany," are unsurpassed in precision, simplicity, clearness, 
and comprehensiveness. He has also written "Genera of the Plants 
of the United States," and " Manual of Botany of the Northern United 
States." In 1861 he published a "Free Examination of Darwin's 
Treatise on the Origin of Species, and of its American Reviews." 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 
WASHINGTON, George, the first president of the 

United States, was born in Westmoreland Co., Va., Feb. 22, 1732. 
His education was limited to reading, writing, arithmetic, and a little 
of book-keeping and surveying. He adopted surveying as a pro- 
fession, and spent several years with his compass and chain, exploring 
the richer portions of Virginia, and becoming acquainted with the 
Indians. Later, his knowledge of Indian manners served him well in 
war, and his knowledge of the country enabled him to select valuable 
lands in the improvement of his fortunes. Washington was in the 



61 STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 

military service at nineteen years of age. July 9, 1755, he was almost 
the only officer not killed or severely wounded in "Braddock's de- 
feat." He had four bullet holes in his coat, and two horses were 
shot under him. He married Mrs. Martha Curtis, Jan. 17, 1759. Af- 
ter the French War, which was settled by treaty, Feb. 10, 1763, lie 
spent several years upon his estate at Mount Vernon ( inherited from 
his brother). This estate, enlarged, included at Washington's death 
about 8,000 acres. He was a slave-holder, but, doubtless, a kind 
master, and one that saw and hated the evils of slavery. His corre- 
spondence frequently expressed his abhorrence of slavery, and, by 
his will, he provided for the emancipation of all his slaves, and also 
for their support and education. June 15, 1775, the Continental Con- 
gress unanimously elected George Washington Commander-in-Chief 
of the armies of the revolution. July 3, he took command of the 
forces besieging Boston. In Oct., 1781, he saw the last British army 
defeated at Yorktown. Nov. 25, 1783, the British evacuated New 
York City, and, Dec. 23, 1783, he resigned his commission, and imme- 
diately sought retirement from all public duties by returning to his 
home, and resuming his personal superintendence of his farm. He 
was elected to the convention that framed our national constitution. 
That body met in Philadelphia in May, 1787, and Washington was 
made its president. April 30, 1789, George Washington was inaugu- 
rated president of the United States. His second election, in 1792, 
was, like the first, unanimous. Neither as General of the armies, nor 
as President of the nation, did Washington accept any salary, more 
than the amount of his official expenses. The nation was poor,— 
hardly better than bankrupt, — and Washington was able to give his 
services, and had the heart to do it. September 17, 1796, he issued his 
"Farewell Address," and, in March, 1797, retired, as he thought, 
finally, from all public duties. Within a year, however, he Avas called 
to take command of the armies of the nation in anticipation of war 
with France. But while he did not believe actual hostilities would 
occur, he did not live to see the war-cloud pass away. Sick only 
twenty-four hours, with the rare disease "acute laryngitis," he died 
at Mount Vernon, Dec. 14, 1799, leaving a nation literally in tears. 
He is fittingly called "The Father of his Country," as he was "First 
in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." In 
1858 the Washington mansion and 200 acres of the estate were bought 
for $200,000, by the " Ladies' Mount Vernon Association," to be held 
in perpetuity as a place of public resort and pilgrimage. The library 
and Washington's bed-room remain as they were at the time of his 
death. Feb. 22, 1885, some forty years having passed in its erection, 
the Washington monument, 555 feet in height, standing highest of all 
human structures, was fittingly inaugurated in the suitably-named 
capital city of America. 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. Go 



JEFFERSON, Thomas, the third president of the 
United States, was born at Shadwell, Va., April 2, 1743. He was ad- 
mitted to the bar at twenty -four years of age, and soon had a large 
and lucrative practice. Like Washington, he married a widow. His 
wife had inherited an estate of 40,000 acres of land, and 135 slaves. 
Jefferson's own patrimony was equally valuable. He was early 
elected to the Virginia house of burgesses, and was one of the fore- 
most in affirming and defending the rights of the colonies against 
British oppression. Like Washington, he was not a leader in debates, 
but was wise in counsel. John Adams said, "Jefferson had the repu- 
tation of a masterly pen," and when Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, 
Sherman, and Livingston were appointed by the Continental Con- 
gress to draft a Declaration of Independence, his associates put the 
work upon Jefferson, contenting themselves with only two or three 
verbal alterations. He was one of the founders of the government of 
ffie United States, was sent to Europe to negotiate treaties, was 
Secretary of State for several years in Washington's cabinet, and was 
Vice President during John Adams' administration. In the presi- 
dential election of 1800, Jefferson and Burr received the same number 
of electoral votes, and, the choice going to the House of Representa- 
tives, Jefferson was chosen on the thirty-sixth ballot,— Burr be- 
coming Vice President. He was re-elected in 1804, receiving 148 of 
the 176 electoral votes. Among the important events of his adminis- 
stration was the purchase of Louisiana from France in 1803,— then 
including 900,000 square miles, the price being $15,000,000. At the 
close of his second term, in 1809, he retired to private life at his 
home in Monticello, Va. His fortunes became reduced, and the legis- 
lature authorized him to sell his estates by lottery to raise funds to 
meet his liabilities. The project, however, was not carried out. He 
never made a formal public address, but he was unsurpassed in politi- 
cal management. In his retirement, his political power was as great 
as in office. He discarded all style and ceremony. The titles, 
"Excellency," "Honorable," and even "Mr." were distasteful to 
him. He died a little past noon, July 4, 1826, a few hours before his 
great cotemporary, John Adams,— just fifty years, almost to an hour, 
after their votes were given for the great " Declaration." 

HENRY, Patrick, the foremost orator of the days 

of the American Revolution, was born at Studley, Va., May 29, 1736. 
His death occurred at Red Hill, Va., June 6, 1799,— a few months 
previous to "Washington's death. As a boy and young man, he would 
leave books and business any time to go fishing or hunting. Friends 
set him up in business several times, only to see him fail. He was 
indolent. It was a pastime with him to tell stories, and watch the 
countenances of his hearers. At the age of twenty-four, after only 



66 STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 

six weeks of law- study, he sought and obtained admission to the bar, 
though he had to promise to study more before beginning the prac- 
tice. He never became a well-read lawyer, but as an advocate he 
was peerless. He stood for popular rights, and carried juries and 
mass-meetings and conventions as by storm. His first triumph was, 
for him, both fame and fortune. It was a plea in behalf of the 
people, and against the right of the clergy. A clergyman's legal 
salary had been fixed at 16,000 pounds of tobacco. Hard times occur- 
ring, a law was passed by which this tobacco tax could be paid in 
money at the rate of two pence per pound. This was a loss to the 
clergy of two thirds of their income. They entered suit. Henry 
spoke for the planters. Twenty clergymen were on the bench with 
the judges. Their cause was, doubtless, legally right. Henry began 
with no confidence, and with no show of ability, but soon he grew 
earnest and eloquent, and his invectives drove the clergymen out of 
the court-house, and the jury instantly gave him a verdict. The 
crowd caught up Henry in their arms, and bore him in triumph on 
their shoulders. A " briefless barrister " stood, at one step, with the 
foremost orators of Virginia. At twenty-nine years of age, he en- 
tered the house of burgesses, and during the remainder of his life he 
was the favorite of his constituents. The burgesses were opposed to 
revolution, but Henry, the slovenly and awkward youth in leather 
knee-breeches and homespun coat, the county-court lawyer, carried 
his resolutions ("the first impulse to the ball of the revolution," as 
Jefferson called them), and wrenched the scepter of influence from 
the hands of the wealthy, richly-clad tory planters. In eloquence, he 
was "Shakspeare and Garrick combined." Henry became a fore- 
most leader in the fast-ripening events preceding the Revolution. 
He was the first elected governor of Virginia, and held the office from 
1776 to 1779, and also from 1783 to 1786. Several other high ofiices 
were offered him. Washington invited him to a place in his cabinet. 
Henry did not originate great public measures, — he was the mouth- 
piece of the oppressed colonies, voicing the rising sentiments of liber- 
ty. The "Life of Patrick Henry," by Wm. Wirt, is one of the most 
readable of biographies. 

JACKSON, Andrew, the seventh president of the 
United States, M r as born in the Waxhaw settlement, N. C, March 15, 
1767, and died at the "Hermitage," near Nashville, Tenn., June 8, 
1845. As a boy, he was frolicsome, generous, brave, and resolute. 
Though so young, he served in the Revolutionary War, and suffered 
imprisonment. At the close of the war, he was an orphan, and very 
poor. Before he was twenty years old, he was admitted to the bar. 
The next year, he was appointed public prosecutor for the Western 
district of N. C.,— now Tennessee. In seven years, he had to make 
twenty-two journeys between Nashville and Jonesborough, 280 miles, 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 67 

and always at great personal risk, owing to the hostility of Indians. 
He was one of the founders of the state of Tennessee, and aided in 
drafting the constitution. He became a member of Congress in 1796. 
The next year, he was made United States Senator. After a brief 
career in the Senate, he returned to Tenn., and spent several years, 
first, as judge of the courts, and, afterward, in business. He became 
the commander of the Tennessee militia, and was appointed Major- 
General in the United States army, May 31, 1814. General Jackson 
fought and won the last battle between the United States and Eng- 
land,— the famous battle at New Orleans, Jan. 8, 1815, in which the 
British loss was not less than 2,000 killed, and the American loss was 
seven killed and six wounded. In the presidential election of 1824, 
Jackson received 99 electoral votes; J. Q. Adams, 84; Crawford, 41; 
and Clay, 37. The House made choice of Adams. In 1S28 Jackson 
won the presidency, and was re-elected in 1832. In private life, Jack- 
son had many personal quarrels, and fought one or more duels. In 
public life he was arbitrary, and much given to "taking the responsi- 
bility." His rule was, "Ask nothing but what is right, and sub- 
mit to nothing wrong." His Scotch-Irish blood "feared no face of 
clay." He hated and he loved with all his heart. 

CLAY, Henry, was born near Richmond, Va., April 

12, 1777. At twenty years of age, he was admitted to the bar, and at 
once removed to Lexington, Ky. As early as 1799, he advocated a 
plan for the gradual extinction of slavery, and, though never classed 
with " Abolitionists," one of the last measures proposed in Congress 
by this eminent statesman was a plan for the ultimate freedom of all 
then held in slavery. In 1804 he was in the state legislature, and, two 
years later, was sent to the United States Senate to fill a vacancy for 
one session. In 1809 he was again a Senator. In 1811 he went to the 
House of Representatives, and received the rare honor, for a new 
member, of being elected Speaker. From 1S11 to 1S25, one term ex- 
cepted, he was a member of the House, and its presiding officer. In 
1814 he was sent to Europe as one of the commissioners to settle the 
terms of peace with England. The "Missouri Compromise" mea- 
sures of 1819-21 were carried largely by Mr. Clay's influence. He 
was three times a prominent candidate for the Presidency,— in '24, 
'32, and '44. He was Secretary of State in the cabinet of the second 
Adams. In 1831 he was again in the Senate, and remained till 1842, 
when he resigned the office. In 1849 he was returned to the Senate. 
His death occurred at Washington, June 29, 1852. He was forty-six 
years in public life. A political opponent said of him, "As a leader 
in a deliberative body, Mr. Clay had no equal in America." In their 
day, Clay, Calhoun, and Webster were often spoken of as " the great 
triumvirate." They were as giants in political power. Mr. Clay was 



68 STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 

the orator of Congress. In his early life he cultivated the habit of 
speaking daily upon some subject,— often going into the fields or 
woods to speak, with no hearer but himself, and often speaking in 
barns with dumb animals for his audience. 

CALHOUN, John* Caldwell, the most eminent 

statesman of South Carolina, was born March 18, 1782. He graduated 
at Yale College in 1804. In 1811 he entered Congress, and remained 
six years ; was Secretary of War in Monroe's cabinet ; was Vice 
President nearly twelve years. In 1816 he supported a protective 
tariff. In 1828 he was a leader of Free Traders. He was the father 
of the "Nullification" doctrine,— that each state may prevent the 
execution of any United States law that it deems unconstitutional. 
This it was which led to the famous Hayne and Webster discussion. 
In 1834 there began in Congress a thirty years discussion of slavery. 
Calhoun denied that Congress had any authority over slavery in any 
form, even in the District of Columbia. He opposed receiving any 
petitions on the subject of slavery. He left the Senate in 1843, and 
became Secretary of State in Tyler's cabinet. In 1845 he was returned 
to the Senate, and died at Washington, March 31, 1850. He foresaw 
and warned the nation that the anti- slavery movement would lead to 
disunion. No man did more to prepare the way for disunion than 
did Calhoun by his doctrine of "State Rights." His great cotempor- 
ary, Webster, said of Calhoun : "A man of unspotted integrity, and 
honor unimpeached." 

WEBSTER, Daniel, called the ' 'Great Expounder of 
the Constitution," was born in Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H., 
Jan. 18, 1782,— preceding Calhoun by just two months. His death 
occurred Oct. 24, 1852,— four months after the death of Clay. While 
a student at Phillips' Exeter academy, he never could muster courage 
for a declamation. After graduating at Dartmouth in 1801, he took 
up the study of law. In 1805 he came to the bar in Boston. He be- 
gan his law practice in Boscawen, N. H., in 1806. After one year, he 
removed to Portsmouth, then the capital of New Hampshire. In 1813 
he entered Congress, and met Clay and Calhoun, who had then been 
members two years, He took a front rank immediately among Con- 
gressional debaters and leaders. His residence and library and onlce 
in Portsmouth were destroyed by fire, and, in 1816, Webster re- 
moved to Boston. Then followed seven years of close application 
to professional duties. In a brief time he came to be regarded as the 
ablest lawyer in the United States. In 1818 he successfully defended 
Dartmouth College, in the Supreme Court at Washington, against an 
unconstitutional law of New Hampshire, and, thereafter, he was re- 
tained in almost every great cause argued before the highest court of 
the nation. Among Mr. Webster's most noted public addresses was 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 69 

his eulogy of Adams and Jefferson,— both signers of the "Declaration 
of Independence," both ex-presidents, and who died on the same 
day, July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the great "Declaration." 
His two Bunker Hill orations were classic,— worthy of the orator, 
and of the eminent patriot dead. The first was given June 17, 1825, 
at the laying of the corner-stone of the monument on the 50th anni- 
versary of the battle. The second was eighteen years later, June 17, 
1S43, at the dedication of the monument, which was then, at its height 
of 221 feet, the highest of American monuments. In 1822 he was 
elected to the House of Representatives. In 1827 he was promoted 
to the Senate, and remained there till 1841. He was Secretary of 
State in Harrison's cabinet, and also, for nearly two years, in Tyler's 
cabinet. In 1845 Webster was returned to the Senate. In the sum- 
mer of 1850, he was made Secretary of State in Fillmore's cabinet. 
His death occurred at his home in Marshfield, Mass. He was the 
jnost conspicuous figure in American political life for nearly thirty 
years. Twice he was offered the vice-presidency, when accepting it 
would have led him to the chief place by the death of the higher 
officer. Webster's debate with Hayne, in Jan., 1830, was probably 
the greatest effort of his life. His reply to that great orator of the 
South was "like an amendment to the Constitution." 

PHILLIPS, Wendell, an American orator, was born 
in Boston, Nov. 29, 1811,— and was the son of Boston's first mayor. 
He was graduated at Harvard College in 1831, and was admitted to 
the bar in 1834. In 1839 he relinquished law practice from an un- 
willingness to observe the oath of fealty to the federal constitution. 
In 1836 he became an abolitionist of the extreme type, and advocated 
disunion in the interest of freedom. In December, 1837, a meeting 
was called in Faneuil Hall to consider the murder of Lovejoy in 
Alton, 111. At that meeting, Dr. Channing presented resolutions 
which called out feelings of approbation and disapprobation. Young 
Phillips took the platform as a volunteer speaker, and made his first 
noted public address, which carried the resolutions, and ranked the 
new orator among the most eloquent known in Boston. He was 
popular as a public lecturer for many years. He died in Boston, 
Feb. 2, 1884. 

GOUGH, John B., the prince of temperance orators, 

wa3 born in Landgate, England, Aug. 22, 1817. At twelve years of 
age, he came to America, and apprenticed himself to a book-binder 
in New York. After some years of dissipation and consequent 
poverty, he was reformed, taking the temperance pledge about 1840. 
Probably no man in America or England has made more temperance 
addresses. Though he often speaks upon other subjects, he invari- 
ably finds a place for temperance in every speech, and crowds always 
gather when Gough is to be the lecturer. [ Died, Feb. 18, 1886.] 



70 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 



DOUGLASS, Frederick, was born at Tuckahoe, Md., 
about 1817. His mother was a negro slave, and his father a white 
man. September 3, 1838, he escaped from bondage, and made his way 
to New Bedford, Mass. For two or three years he supported himself 
as a day- laborer. In 1841-5 he lectured extensively in New England 
in the interest of the anti-slavery movement. In 1846 he went to Eng- 
land, and lectured with great popular favor. In that year, friends in 
England secured his legal freedom by raising 150 pounds, While in 
bondage, he secretly learned to read and write. He has since made 
a good use of all opportunities for knowledge. After two years in 
England, he returned to the United States, and began the publication 
of a weekly journal at Rochester, N. Y. To avoid arrest, on account 
of the John Brown raid (but which he did not encourage), Douglass 
went into Canada for six or eight months. After the abolition of 
slavery, he prepared himself for the Lyceum platform, and, for 
years, was one of the most popular of American lecturers. In 1872 
he was a presidential elector at large for New York, and was ap- 
pointed to carry the vote of the state to Washington. For several 
years, he was Marshal of the District of Columbia. 

LINCOLN, Abraham, the sixteenth president of the 
United States, was a native of Larue County, Ky., born Feb. 12, 1809. 
In 1816 the family moved into Indiana, and settled near Gentryville. 
He attended school about one year. His reading in his youth in- 
cluded "Pilgrim's Progress," "Robinson Crusoe." "iEsop's Fables," 
"Life of Washington," and " Revised Statutes of Indiana." At six- 
teen years of age, he managed a ferry across the Ohio for $6 a month. 
In 1828 he went to New Orleans as " bow-hand " on a flat-boat with a 
cargo of provisions. In 1830 the family moved to Illinois, and built a 
log-house, and cleared fifteen acres of land, for the fencing of which 
Abraham split the rails. The next year, he helped to build a flat- 
boat to carry another cargo to New Orleans. His experience in get- 
ting the boat over shoals led him to patent an invention in 1849, the 
model of which, bearing his name and cut out with a pocket-knife, 
is in the Patent Office. On this visit to New Orleans, he first saw 
slaves chained and scourged, and began to understand and hate 
slavery. Working in a country store ; soldiering in the Black Hawk 
war ; owning a store, and serving as postmaster ; becoming bank- 
rupt through a partner's fault, and having to pay the debts (paying 
the last in 1849) ; studying law ; becoming an expert surveyor ; be- 
coming a candidate for the legislature, first losing, and, next time, 
winning by a great majority ; being the party candidate for speaker 
. in '38 and also in '40 ; occupying important party positions in '40 and 
'44 ; stumping the state for both Harrison and Clay, and, in those 
campaigns, often opposing Stephen. .A. Douglas in joint debates ; and 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 71 

winning a seat in Congress in 1846, the only Whig member from 
Illinois, and thereafter the Whig leader in his state ; in 1858 canvassing 
Illinois with Douglas in the greatest political debate known in the 
history of the United States, not winning the U. S. Senatorship, hut 
securing his greater object, to wit, the failure of Douglas, and the 
certain triumph of the Republican party in the presidential campaign 
in I860,. — this is but a meager outline of Mr. Lincoln's history for 
thirty years. In 1861 he became president of the nation, and, entering 
upon his great office, found the most gigantic rebellion of history 
well matured, and defying the authority at Washington. He was 
re-elected in 1864. Five weeks after his second inauguration, the 
rebel armies were surrendered, and the war was closed. A week 
later, the great and good president fell by the assassin's bullet, — 
shot April 14, 1865, and dying the next morning. No man since 
Washington has been so beloved by his countrymen. He " preserved 
what Washington had created." In humility and tenderness of 
heart, in sympathy for mankind, in clearness of mental perception, 
in statesmanlike sagacity, in the gift of speech, in grasp of principles, 
in devotion to principles, in a sublime confidence in the triumph of 
truth and justice, — Abraham Lincoln was fully the equal of the very 
few greatest men of all times ; confessedly the providential man 
prepared for the supreme hour of the 19th century. 

BONAPARTE, Napoleon, Emperor of France, was 

born in Ajaccio, Corsica, Aug. 15, 1769. His first teacher was his 
mother. At ten years of age, he was sent to the military school at 
Brienne. At fifteen, he went to the military school in Paris to 
complete his studies. He was a diligent student, and his reading 
included much more than the prescribed text-books. At sixteen, 
he became a sub-lieutenant of artillery, and at twenty-five, he was 
a brigadier-general. Those were troublous times in France, and 
Napoleon possessed the genius of leadership and command, and, 
in another year, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the 
Interior. He developed the greatest military genius of modern 
times. He was a prodigy for work. He could hold a firm hand upon 
the very details of the government at Paris while conducting a great 
campaign in distant parts. He slept only a few hours,— it is said, 
only four in the twenty-four. He could dictate to several secretaries, 
and keep them all writing at once upon very different subjects. From 
Oct. 5, 1795, when he dispersed the mob at Paris, to June 18, 1815, the 
day at Waterloo,— for twenty years,— he was actually the ruler of 
France and the terror of every other government of Europe. He 
assumed the imperial title May 18, 1S04. On the following Dec. 2, 
Pius VII. consecrated him "the high and mighty Napoleon I., Em- 
peror of the French." He led his legions over the Alps, and drove 
the Austrians out of Italy, and made the latter country as a province 



72 STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 

of France. Egypt and Palestine, Germany, Austria, Russia, and 
Spain, all suffered the terrible scourge of war as Napoleon led army 
after army for conquest or spoil. He had all Europe in arms against 
him. He succumbed at last, not so much to superiority of numbers 
as on account of the exhaustion of France. He led two generations 
of brave, enthusiastic Frenchmen to battle fields and to death. In 
his Russian campaign in 1812, he had an army of more than 500,000 
men. Having defeated the Russians at Smolensk and at Borodino, 
he inarched on to Moscow,— reaching the deserted city Sept. 15. 
Five weeks later, he turned towards France with only 120,000 men,— 
the most terrible retreat written in military annals. He lost in that 
campaign 125,000 slain; 132,000 dead of fatigue, cold, hunger, and 
disease ; and 193,000 made prisoners. He had hardly reached Paris 
before he had another army of 350,000 ready for a campaign into 
Germany, from which he returned with only 80,000. For ten months 
in 1814, he was practically in banishment on the island of Elba. On 
his secret return to Paris, Louis XVIII. was driven from the throne, 
and Napoleon was enthusiastically welcomed back to power, and 
soon had an army of 200,000 ready for his last march and last battle. 
At Waterloo, June 18, 1815, Napoleon was overwhelmed, and the 
wars of twenty-three years were closed. After this defeat, he 
planned to escape to America, but failed. He surrendered himself to 
an English officer. He arrived at St. Helena Oct. 16, 1815, and there 
remained most strictly guarded by English soldiers till May 5, 1821, 
when he died of an ulcer of the stomach,— a little less than fifty- two 
years old. Twenty-five years later, his remains were returned to 
Paris, and, Dec. 15, 1840, deposited beneath a magnificent monument 
in the Hotel des Invalides. His life has been written by admiring 
friends, and by those, also, who could not respect his character, or 
approve his motives, though admiring his wonderful powers. After 
divorcing Josephine, he married Maria Louisa of Austria. One son 
was born to him by this unholy marriage ; but the son lived to be 
only twenty -one years of age, and so a Napoleonic dynasty, the great 
desire of the emperor, came to naught. 

JOSEPHINE, Empress of France, the wife of Napo- 
leon I., was born at Trois-Ilets, Martinique, June 23, 1763. In Dec, 
1779, she married the Viscount de Beauharnais, and went to live in 
Paris. In 1785 the unfaithful Beauharnais sought a divorce. The 
case was in the courts nearly a year. Josephine was exonerated 
from all charges, but a separation was allowed,— the mother to have 
the care of the daughter, and the father retaining the care of the son. 
The Beauharnais family sided with Josephine, and she took up her 
residence with her father-in-law. In the autumn of 1790, she was 
reconciled to her husband. Subsequently, when he was arrested and 



STATESMEN, ORATORS, AND RULERS. 73 

imprisoned "for causing the surrender of Mentz by his inaction," 
she attempted to procure his escape, but was herself arrested and 
narrowly escaped his fate— the guillotine, July 23, 1794. (He fought 
in the American Revolution under Count Rochambeau). She mar- 
ried Bonaparte, March 9, 1796. When his coronation as emperor was 
to take place, his sisters endeavored to prevent her coronation as 
empress because she had not borne him children. A decree of di- 
vorce was secured in Dec, 1809. Josephine retained her rank and 
titles, and was allowed an annuity of 2,000,000 francs. She continued 
to reside at Malmaison, near Paris, where she died, May 29, 1814. 
Her daughter, Hortense, married Louis Bonaparte, brother of Napo- 
leon, and became the mother of Napoleon III. Josephine ranks with 
the purest and best of women. She suffered deepest agony of soul, 
but held fast to her integrity. She was ever true to her unfaithful 
husband. The world is glad, for her sake, that she did not live to 
witness his final overthrow, and know of his bitter imprisonment on 
St. Helena. In the coming ages, her name will brighten more and 
more, while his name is very likely to grow dim. 

VICTORIA, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and 

Empress of India, was born May 24, 1819. She was the only child of 
Edward, Duke of Kent, 4th son of George III. Her father died Jan. 
23, 1820, and her grandfather died only six days later. When her 
uncle, George IV., died in 1830, she became the probable heir of the 
throne. At her baptism, she was named Alexandrina Victoria, but 
for her royal signature she has used only Victoria. She was blessed 
with a good mother, and her early education was suitable for her 
rank and probable responsibilities in life. By her reading, when 
about eleven years old, she discovered her relation to the crown. 
For seven years, she knew that only one life, that of her uncle, 
William IV., stood between her and the highest human authority on 
earth ; but she was a modest, intelligent, sensible English girl, and 
bore her high distinction very becomingly. She reached her legal 
majority at eighteen years of age. The next month, June 20, 1837, 
William IV. died. Immediately upon his death, messengers set off to 
notify his niece and successor. Arriving before daylight, the ser- 
vants answered that she was asleep. They said : " We are come to 
the Queen on business of State, and even her sleep must give way to 
that." "She soon came down into the room in a loose white night- 
gown and shawl, her night- cap thrown off, and her hair falling upon 
her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly 
collected and dignified." The next day, June 21, 1837, she was pub- 
licly proclaimed Queen under the title of Victoria I., though the pub- 
lic coronation did not take place till June 28, 1838. Feb. 10, 1840, she 
married Prince Albert,— son of her mother's brother, Duke of 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 



Saxe-Coburg. Four sons and five daughters were born to them. 
Early in 1861, her mother died, and, in December of the same year, 
her husband died. Their marriage was no matter of mere state policy 
or convenience. They were royal lovers, and, since his death, Vic- 
toria has been one of the deepest of mourners. For fifteen years 
thereafter, she did not in person open the session of parliament. In 
April, 1876, she was authorized to take the title of "Empress of 
India." Her reign has been peaceful and prosperous. During this 
long period of nearly a half century, her kingdom has been greatly 
strengthened. A heathen prince, visiting her, inquired the secret of 
England's greatness and power. Taking up a volume near by, she 
said; " This is the secret— the Bible." 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 

ST. PAUL, was a native of Tarsus, a city of Cilicia. 
He was a Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, and one of the strictest of 
the Pharisees. He inherited the rights of a Roman citizen. He was 
educated at Jerusalem under the tuition of Gamaliel. He learned 
the trade of tent-making, and supported himself by his trade much 
of the time of his ministry. He witnessed the martyrdom of Stephen, 
and participated in it. He became a leader in the first persecution of 
Christians. On his way to arrest Christians in Damascus, he was 
supernaturally struck down, and made blind for three days. This 
led to a thorough change in his feelings, and in the whole manner of 
his life. He became a Christian disciple, a preacher of the gospel, 
and a chief apostle. His ministry was the most extensive of all the 
apostles. He traversed Asia Minor several times, founded several of 
the first Christian churches in Europe, visited islands of the Mediter- 
ranean, spent a long time in Arabia, and preached in Eome also. He 
was emphatically the missionary apostle. He is the reputed author 
of fourteen portions of the New Testament. The biblical history 
leaves Paul a prisoner at Rome. His death occurred about A.D. 64, 
and tradition says he was beheaded In the exhuming of Hercula- 
neum, which was destroyed in A.D. 79, a medallion of Paul was 
found having several inscriptions, one of which is translated, "Paul 
the Apostle, a chosen vessel." 

LUTHER, Martin, the foremost reformer of the 16th 
century, was born in Eisleben, Saxony, Nov. 10, 1483. His parents 
were very poor peasants. His early discipline was severe. The Ger- 
man schools of those days were purgatories, and the teachers were 
tyrants. Martin was flogged fifteen times one forenoon. When he 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 



went from home to school, he had to beg his bread at first from door 
to door in the village of the school town. At last, the good Ursula 
Cotta took the lad into her home, and supported him till he was pre- 
pared, at eighteen years of age, for the university of Erfurt. July 
17, 1505, he suddenly turned away from secular life and entered the 
Augustinian convent. In 1508 he was called to the professorship of 
philosophy in the university of Wittenberg. In 1512 he received the 
degree of D.D. Up to twenty-seven years of age, when he made a 
journey to Rome, he was a zealous Roman Catholic. His moral 
sensibilities were so shocked by his observations in and about Rome 
that he never afterward looked upon the Church of Rome with rever- 
ence. October 31, 1517, he nailed 95 propositions to the doors of the 
university church in Wittenberg, and challenged the world to debate 
those theses w^ith him. The occasion of it was this : Tetzel had come 
into Saxony to raise money for the pope by selling indulgences, and 
'Luther's soul was profoundly stirred by the blasphemous business. 
From that hour, Luther's life-work was that of a reformer and leader 
of reformers. April 18, 1521, he stood before the diet of Worms, and 
defended the Bible and conscience and private judgment, as against 
tradition and pope and council. In that day's work the Reformation 
culminated, and Luther went out of that assembly an outlaw. Then 
came ten months of seclusion in the castle of Wartburg,— time well 
spent in translating the New Testament for the people. In June, 
1525, Luther married an ex-min, Catherine von Bora, chiefly because 
they loved each other, but partly, as he says, "to please his father, 
to cease the pope, and to vex the devil." In 1534 he completed the 
translation of the whole Bible, the work of many years, and probably 
Luther's most monumental work. Visiting his native place to effect 
a reconciliation between parties alienated, he sickened and died, 
Feb. 18, 1546. The Lutheran Reformation had no organizing leader. 
Luther could think and write and preach, but no one appeared with 
the needed gift to legislate for and direct the Protestant movement 
of that century. His ideas live. Rome can never recover from the 
blow which this sturdy German struck at her errors and corruptions. 
On the 400th anniversary of his birth, the whole Protestant world 
united to honor his memory, and rehearse his great work. 

CALVIN, John, was born at Noyon in Northern 

France, July 10, 1509, and died at Geneva, May 27, 1564,— one month 
after Shakspeare's birth. He first studied for the priesthood in the 
Church of Rome, and was preaching at eighteen years of age. Then 
he studied law. Finding a Bible in French, he began to doubt his 
traditional faith. He read law by day, and studied the Bible at night, 
and the result was that he abandoned the law, and espoused the 
cause of the Reformation, and became one of its foremost leaders. 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 



Few men have had the courage of their logical convictions,— Calvin 
was one of the few. He stood by the conclusions of his syllogisms. 
Few men ever influence the thinking of centuries more than he. 
In 1535 he issued his " Institutes," the chief idea of which was the 
supremacy of the divine will. He went to Geneva in 1536. Two years 
later, he was expelled from Geneva, and went to Strasburg, and was 
made pastor of a church of 1,500 French refugees. In 1541 the town 
council of Geneva called him back. He consented to return on con- 
dition that he be permitted to reform the town, and supported in his 
work. He made the church almost supreme, even in civil affairs, 
and made himself almost autocrat of the church. He made Geneva 
the most moral town in all Europe. As professor of theology, his 
fame spread throughout Europe, and students came from Holland, 
Germany, and Scotland to receive his instructions. He requested 
that no monument mark his grave, and its exact place is unknown. 

BUNT AN", John, an English preacher, was born at 
Elstow in 1628, and died Aug. 31, 1788. He was the son of a tinker, 
and worked at his father's trade, which led to his being called " the 
immortal tinker." He was but poorly educated. At seventeen years 
of age, he enlisted in the army, and served one campaign. Directly 
after his conversion, he began to preach to the poor people of Bed- 
ford, and for this he was imprisoned. He was offered his liberty if 
he would desist from preaching, but his answer was, " If you let me 
go to-day I will preach again to-morrow. ' ' One day a Quaker visited 
him and declared that, by order of the Lord, he had sought for him 
in half the prisons in England. "If the Lord had sent you," replied 
Bunyan, " you need not have taken so much trouble to find me out ; 
for the Lord knows I have been a prisoner in Bedford Jail for the 
last twelve years." During all these years, he supported his family 
by making tagged laces. Few scenes are more thrilling than the 
visits which his little blind daughter made to him in his prison, and 
his preaching to the crowds that gathered before his window. He 
had the Bible and Fox's Book of Martyrs for his reading in those 
twelve years. He worked by day, and, by night, wrote his won- 
drously fascinating allegory. In 1673 he was set free, and spent the 
remainder of his life in preaching. He came to be called "Bishop 
Bunyan," — such was his influence, and so extensive his labors. He 
died of a fever in London, where he had gone to preach to the Non- 
conformists, and where immense crowds would gather when he was 
announced. His " Pilgrim's Progress," written in Bedford Jail, was 
published, the first part in 1678, and the second in 1684. He also pub- 
lished " Holy War," and other works, but only his first work is much 
read now. " Pilgrim's Progress " was written by a plain uneducated 
man for plain uneducated people, but it has ever found its way 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 77 

straight home to their hearts and imaginations. It has been trans- 
lated into more languages than any other book save the Bible. 
Southey said there were only two great creative minds in the 17th 
century,— one produced " Paradise Lost," and the other, " Pilgrim's 
Progress." 

S WEDENBORG, Emanuel, founder of the New Jeru- 
salem Church, was born in Stockholm, Jan. 29, 1688,— a few months 
before Bunyan's death,— and died in London, March 29, 1772. He 
was very carefully educated. For many years, he was almost wholly 
employed in scientific pursuits, in mining, engineering, and physio- 
logical studies. He became a member of the principal philosophical 
and scientific societies of Northern Europe. His rank entitled him 
to a seat in the Swedish Parliament, and, about 1721, Charles XII. 
made him assessor of the Board of Mines, and thus he became a 
jmember of the Cabinet. His publications at this period of his life 
were numerous, though later researches have superseded all of 
Swedenborg's scientific works. In 1745, at fifty-seven years of age, 
he laid aside all other studies, and devoted himself wholly to theolo- 
gy, and the promulgation of the doctrines of the New Jerusalem 
Church. He did not attempt to collect congregations, nor organize a 
church. He wrote and published abundantly, and left his teachings 
to make their own way to acceptance and power. He said, " I have 
been called to a holy office by the Lord himself, who most graciously 
manifested himself in person to me his servant in the year 1713, when 
he opened my sight to the view of the spiritual world, and granted 
me the privilege of conversing with spirits and angels, .... and this 
continually for twenty-seven years." The Acts and Epistles in the 
New Testament, and Job, Ruth, Esther, Proverbs, Song of Solomon, 
and Ecclesiastes, though admitted to be good and useful, were not 
accepted by Swedenborg as the Word. Among his principal works 
are " The True Christian Religion," "Concerning Heaven and Hell," 
"Conjugal Love," and "Arcana Ccelestia." 

WESLEY, John, the providential founder of the most 
numerous denomination of Protestants, was born in the rectory at 
Epworth, England, June 17, 1703. His father, grandfather, and great 
grandfather, and also his mother's father were clergymen. Until 
thirteen years of age, his education was conducted by his mother. 
Then he went to the Charter-House school in London, and prepared 
for Christ College, Oxford. In 1735 John Wesley and his brother 
Charles sailed for Georgia to evangelize the Indian tribes of America. 
They found no "open door" by which to reach the Indians, and, 
after about two years of ministry to the colonists, they returned to 
England. As yet, neither of them had "passed from death unto 
fife." In May, 1738, John Wesley found the way of faith and of peace 






7S MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 

through faith in Christ. His preaching became earnest, and, to 
many, so unacceptable that, within a year, scarcely a pulpit in Eng- 
land was open to him.. Visiting Epworth at this time, the drunken 
curate refused him even the sacrament, and Wesley went out and 
stood on his father's tombstone, and preached seven successive 
evenings to crowds of people. For fifty years, he was constantly 
traversing Great Britain and Ireland preaching the gospel. When 
he died, his followers in Great Britain and the United States num- 
bered 540 preachers, and 134,600 Methodist Church members. His 
journeyings for half a century, mostly on horseback, aggregated not 
less than 250,000 miles, and he preached 42,400 sermons. At the be- 
ginning of his great evangelistic career, not only did the Church of 
England close its pulpits against him, but wherever he went, in city 
or village, he had to meet the mob, even the civil authorities giving 
him little or no protection. Long before his death, every pulpit of 
the Church of England was open to him, and wherever he was an- 
nounced to preach, great congregations gathered and listened rever- 
ently. It is said that Wesley's preaching was marked by the accuracy 
of the scholar, the authority of an embassador, the unction of a saint, 
and the power of God. He was one of the best scholars of his day. 
He could quote the Greek of the New Testament at will. He wrote 
grammars in English, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew for the 
scholars under his care. Besides preaching from two to four times a 
day for about fifty years, he was a great reader, and a voluminous 
writer. Including abridgments and translations, his published works 
amounted to about 200 volumes. "Looking at his traveling, the 
marvel is how he found time to write, and, looking at his books, the 
marvel is how he found time to preach." He needed to sleep less, 
and could work more hours than most men. At eighty years of age, 
he could ride and write and preach with no sense of weariness. He 
was a most methodical worker, — always rising at four, almost 
always preaching at five, and "always in haste and never in a 
hurry." He used to say, "Leisure and I have taken leave of each 
other." When eighty-five years of age, he preached eighty times in 
eight successive weeks, in fifty-seven different places. His last 
sermon was preached Feb. 23, 1791, on the text, "Seek ye the Lord 
while he may be found, and call ye upon him while he is near." 
The next day he wrote his last letter, encouraging Wilberforce in 
his efforts to put an end to slavery in all British dominions. Then the 
" weary wheels of life stood still." He was not sick, but worn out. 
March 2, 1791, he "fell asleep," in his 88th year. Southey said, "I 
consider Wesley as the most influential mind of the 18th century,— 
the man who will have produced the greatest effects centuries and 
perhaps millenniums hence." 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 79 

CHALMERS, Thomas, was born at Anstruther, in 
Fifeshire, Scotland, March 17, 1780, and died near Edinburgh, May 3, 
1847. He was a member of St. Andrew's parish school, and was so 
mischievous and stupid that the master dismissed him as an incor- 
rigible dunce. He entered the ministry as a profession, and was for 
several years a professional preacher. In 1809 he was led by great 
afflictions into deeper knowledge of spiritual things, and immediately 
developed into a marvel of pulpit power. He became at once the 
foremost preacher in Scotland. He was one of the first Presbyterian 
ministers to receive an honorary degree from Cambridge. " We have 
no preaching like that in England," said Canning after hearing Chal- 
mers in London. The style of Chalmers became the rage among 
young preachers in Scotland, though few could do more than copy 
his defects. As a pastor, he interested himself in everything useful 
to his parishioners. In 1828 he became a Professor in the university 
"of Edinburgh, and held the place fifteen years. His collected works 
fill twenty-five volumes duodecimo. He retired in usual health, and 
was found dead in his bed without a trace of suffering on his coun- 
tenance. 

CHANGING, William Elleky, was born in New- 
port, R. I., April 7, 1780. His father, a graduate of Princeton College, 
was a prominent lawyer. His maternal grandfather, William Ellery, 
graduated at Harvard, became the foremost New England merchant 
of his day, and was one of the fifty- six signers of the Declaration of 
Independence. The home of young Channing often welcomed such 
guests as Washington, Jay, and President Stiles. He was one of the 
thoroughly good boys at home and at school. His mates called him 
"Peacemaker" and "Little King Pepin." At nineteen years of 
age, he graduated at Harvard College,— taking the highest honors in 
a class with Judge Story. After teaching in Richmond, Va. , a year 
and a half, and, in the meantime, becoming established in religious 
convictions, and attaining a definite religious experience, he returned 
to Newport, and gave his time to theological study. He began to 
preach in his twenty -third year, and became pastor of Federal St. 
church, Boston, June 1, 1803. At that time, the Congregational 
Church in New England was in a transition state. For many years, 
he did not fully affiliate with either party of the growing division in 
New England Congregationalism. The actual separation, and the 
organization of Unitarianism took place about 1815. In 1819 Dr. 
Channing preached at the ordination of Dr. Sparks in Baltimore. 
This discourse was the first notable utterance of Unitarianism in the 
United States. Thereafter, Channing was the acknowledged leader 
of the Unitarians in this country. He never became a polemic- 
he could not be a controversialist. Probably he never formulated 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 



his own belief. He wanted no name but that of a seeker for truth, 
the servant of God, the friend of fellowmen. He was no logician 
in theology. He was an apostle of free thought,— instinctirely de- 
fending the oppressed. His labors in his last years were far more 
in the lines of general philanthropy than of the ministry of the word. 
Though in America known as a theologian, in Europe he was known 
as a philanthropist and a man of letters. His best writing and 
speaking were upon reform topics ; as, peace, temperance, education, 
and freedom. When Lovejoy was murdered in Alton, 111., in 1837, 
Channing headed a bold call for a public meeting in Faneuil Hall, 
that Boston might voice its sentiments upon the great crime. That 
meeting— perhaps the stormiest ever held in the "Old Cradle .of 
Liberty"— made Boston a free city, made the name of Wendell 
Phillips a synonym for oratory, and placed Channing at the fore- 
front of New England sentiment in behalf of liberty. His last public 
address, in the summer of 1842, was made at Lenox, Mass., com- 
memorating emancipation in the British West Indies. He died in 
Bennington, Vt., Oct. 2, 1842. Much of his life was passed in bodily 
suffering. Never robust, by overwork he early made himself an 
invalid. He was compelled to take many and irregular vacations. 
The world has had comparatively few so pure, so unselfish, so hu- 
mane men. Some unknown writer said, "The poorest boy amid 
the Berkshire hills was poorer for Channing's death ; the babe, born 
in a garret in a city, is more friendless than before." 

SIMPSON, Matthew, for thirty-two years one of the 

Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church, was born in Cadiz, Ohio, 
June 20, 1811, and died in Philadelphia, June 18, 1884. Having fin- 
ished his collegiate education in his nineteenth year, he then took up 
the study of medicine, and received a medical diploma in 1833. After 
a brief period of medical practice, he yielded to his convictions of 
duty in regard to the Christian ministry, and joined the Pittsburg 
Annual Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church at its session 
in 1833. After a few years in the pastorate, he was called to the edu- 
cational work of the church, and served two years in the faculty of 
Alleghany College, and nine years as President of Indiana Asbury 
University. For four years, 1848-52, he edited the Western Christian 
Advocate at Cincinnati. At the General Conference of his church, 
held in Boston in May, 1852, he was elected one of the Bishops. His 
official duties frequently called him to all parts of the United States ' 
and territories, and several times to the Methodist mission stations 
in foreign lands. He was one of the foremost preachers of his times. 
Probably no other man in the 19th century has been listened to by so 
many different people. He was admired by millions, and multitudes 
mourned as in personal bereavement at his death. In the dark days 



MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. SI 

when armed rebellion was in the land, Bishop Simpson was one of 
Lincoln's most confidential, though unofficial, advisers. He officiated 
at the funeral of the martyr president. 

SPURGEON, Charles Haddon, a peculiarly eminent 

English preacher, was born in Kelvedon, England, June 19, 1834. At 
eighteen years of age he was pastor of a Baptist church at Water- 
beach. The next year, he was called to a pastorate in London. So 
great crowds were attracted to his ministry that his congregation 
moved to Exeter Hall, and then to Surrey Music Hall. In 1861 the 
" Tabernacle," seating from five to six thousand, was built. He has 
received many thousands to membership in his church, and has built 
about forty chapels in London. His sermons have been printed since 
1854, and not less than hundreds of thousands read them every 
week, and the yearly volumes have been translated into many lan- 
guages. Besides sermons, he has published "John Ploughman's 
Talk," "The Saint and His Saviour," and, what is the great labor 
and rich fruit of many years, "The Treasury of David,"— a com- 
mentary on the Psalms in several volumes. Probably no man ever 
held so large a congregation through so many years of one pastorate. 
Besides his direct evangelistic work, he has organized and carries 
forward a large orphanage, and a Pastor's College for the training 
of Christian workers and ministers for his chapels and various mis- 
sions. He is a pronounced Calvinist, a thorough Baptist, but an 
open Communionist. 

STORES, Richard Salter, the most eminent Con- 
gregational clergyman now living in America, was born in Braintree, 
Mass., Aug. 21, 1821. He graduated at Amherst in 1839, and at An- 
dover in 1845. His first pastorate, of about one year, was in Brook- 
line, Mass. In 1846 he became pastor of the Church of the Pilgrims 
in the city of Brooklyn, and has there remained with distinguished 
and increasing ability nearly forty years. His sermons, given without 
notes, are rich in thought, and models of classic English,— and per- 
vaded throughout with the doctrine and spirit of the gospel. He was 
one of the founders, and, for thirteen years, one of the editors of the 
" Independent." He is one of the best read of historians. It is said 
of him, that " he has studied history so much as to be a cotemporary 
with the ancients, and an ancient among his cotemporaries." Where- 
ever he is known, the announcement of a lecture to be given by Dr. 
Storrs gathers a large audience, whatever the weather. When he 
speaks from pulpit or platform he has something to say, and always 
says it well. 

BEECHER, Henry Ward, was born in Litchfield, 

Conn., June 24, 1814. He graduated at Amherst in 1834. From 1837 to 



82 MINISTERS AND THEOLOGIANS. 

1847, he was a pastor, first in Lawrenceburg, Ind. and then in Indian- 
apolis. In 1847 he took the pastorate of Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, 
N. Y., which he holds to-day. For many years, immense congrega- 
tions waited upon his ministry. Probably his sermons have been 
"reported" and published more than those of any other American 
preacher. Besides his pulpit work, he was for twenty years a regular 
contributor to the "Independent," and, for two years, its editor, 
and, subsequently, edited the "Christian Union" for many years. 
He has published "Lectures to Young Men," and one volume of 
fiction,—" Norwood." He has been very much in demand in popular 
lecture courses. At the beginning of his ministry, he was in sym- 
pathy with evangelical churches, and, until recently, has been an 
accredited Congregational clergyman. His later utterances have 
warranted Universalists in claiming him as one with them. 

TALMAGE, Thomas DeWitt, another very noted 

clergyman in Brooklyn, was born in Boundbrook, N. J., Jan. 7, 1832. 
He graduated at New York University in 1853. He was a pastor in 
Belleville, N. J., three years ; in Syracuse, three years ; in Philadel- 
phia, seven years. In 1869 he became pastor of Central Presbyterian 
church, Brooklyn. His "Tabernacle," dedicated Feb. 22, 1874, seats 
5000 persons, and is the largest Protestant church in America. For 
several years, he edited the "Christian at Work." His sermons 
have been very popular, and very extensively published in news- 
papers and in volumes. 

MOODY, Dwight Lyman, the most noted evangelist 
of the 19th century, was born in Northfield, Mass., Feb. 5, 1837. His 
parents were Unitarians. When about eighteen years of age, he be- 
came a clerk in Boston, and there he accepted the faith of the 
" Orthodox" Congregationalists, and united with Dr. Kirk's church. 
He immediately engaged in Sunday-school and other Christian work. 
In 1856 he went to Chicago, and found employment. His zeal led 
him to a mission Sunday-school, into which he brought a new class 
gathered from the streets. Soon after, he went into one of the most 
neglected portions of Chicago, and built up a new school, and the 
work so prospered that, after a while, he gave up his secular work 
to devote himself wholly to his mission. In 1871 Mr. Moody met 
Mr. Sankey, Ms singing companion, and, since then, they have been 
laborers together in all the principal cities of the United States, be- 
sides long seasons of labor in Great Britain. Mr. Moody is a man 
of the people, of plain and simple speech, evidently intent upon 
the one work of making bad men good, and good men better. His 
labors have been blessed beyond any human estimate. Wherever he 
goes, immense crowds wait upon his ministry. In many places, tem- 
porary tabernacles, seating many thousands, have been erected for 



ARTISTS. 83 



his meetings. Besides his unparalleled evangelistic work, he has 
founded two schools— one for poor hoys and one for poor girls — at 
his home in Northfield. 



ARTISTS. 

RAPHAEL, or Raffaello Sanzio, an Italian painter, 
was horn in Urbino, April 6, 1483. He belonged to a family of artists. 
At twelve years of age, he was placed under the tuition of Perugino, 
and remained with him nearly eight years. In 1504 he visited Flor- 
ence for the first time, and saw some of the works of Angelo and 
da Vinci, which led him into new styles of painting. In 1508 he went 
to Rome, by invitation of Pope Julius II., to complete the frescoes of 
' some of the halls of the Vatican. His works included more than 
eighty portraits, a great number of ''Madonnas," and many historical 
paintings. His last work, and, by many considered his best, was 
the "Transfiguration," in the Vatican. He was also a sculptor, and 
an architect. He died of a fever in Rome, April 6, 1520,— the thirty- 
seventh anniversary of his birth. 

VINCI, Leonardo da, an Italian painter, was born 
near Florence in 1452, and died near Amboise, France, May 2, 1519. 
Hallam concedes to him a foremost rank among the illustrious men 
of the 15th century. He was an authority in sculpture, architecture, 
and other arts, as well as painting. His "Last Supper," a fresco in 
a Milanese convent, has been called the highest effort of Christian 
art. This fresco did not remain in its beauty and power a half cen- 
tury, but copies were made before its decay, and, from one copy now 
in the Royal Academy, London, thousands of engravings and photo- 
graphs have been distributed in Europe and America. Not one of 
his paintings remains in its original perfection, and no picture extant 
bearing his name is of undisputed authenticity. 

MICHAEL ANGELO, painter, sculptor, and architect, 
was bom in Tuscany, March 6, 1475. As with Galileo, so with An- 
gelo, all later times know him by his Christian name only, — not by 
his surname, Buonarroti. In Florence there stands a statue of David, 
sixteen and a half feet high, cut by Angelo out of a block of marble 
that had lain in the street one hundred years. It was made at the 
request of the governor of the city, and when he first saw the statue, 
he pretended to think that the nose was too large. It was vain to 
reason him out of his opinion ; and accordingly Angelo, snatching 
up a chisel in one hand and some marble-dust in the other, pretended 
to diminish the surface of the feature, letting the dust fall during the 



84 ARTISTS. 



process of apparent reduction. The magistrate at once confessed the 
improvement thus made in accordance with his judgment, and then 
pronounced the work perfect. His greatest paintings, the ' ' Deluge," 
" Goliath slain by David," and the "Last Judgment," were exe- 
cuted in the Sistine Chapel. At seventy years of age, he became the 
chief architect of St. Peter's. He died at Rome, Feb. 17, or 18, 1563,— 
nearly eighty-eight years old. He held that every imaginative con- 
ception could be embodied in marble. When Julius II. ordered him 
to decorate the Sistine Chapel, he exclaimed, " I am not a painter, I 
am a sculptor." " A man such as thou," replied the Pope, "is every 
thing that he wishes to be." "But this is an affair of Raphael, 
not mine. Give him this room to paint, and give me a mountain to 
carve." But the Pope insisted, and all the world knows the result. 
Raphael thanked God that he was born in the time of Michael 
Angelo. 

TITIAN, (TIZIANO VECELLIO), an Italian painter, 
was born near Pieve di Cadora, in 1477, and died in Venice, Aug. 27, 
1576,— ninety-nine years old. At thirty -four years of age, he had no 
rival in his art. He worked at his art till the Aery close of his long 
life. His latest work and many of his best works are in Venice,— 
though his paintings are in all the principal galleries of Europe. His 
subjects were taken from history, sacred and profane, and mythol- 
ogy ; and also portraits and landscapes are numerous in his works. 
He is especially distinguished by the splendor, boldness, and truth 
of his coloring ; and, as a painter, ranks with Raphael, da Vinci, and 
Angelo. A complete catalogue of his works does not exist, but the 
number known is upwards of six hundred. " Visit of Mary to Eliza- 
beth," "Christ with the Tribute Money," "Entombment of Christ," 
"Christ Crowned with Thorns," "St. Sebastian," " Virgin and Child 
with Saints," "Diana and Her Nymphs," and "Venus and Adonis," 
were among his chief works. The "Death of St. Peter Martyr" was 
the work of eight years, and his "Last Supper" the work of seven 
years. 

VANDYKE, Sir Antpiony, a Flemish painter, was 
born in Antwerp, March 22, 1599, and died in London, Dec. 9, 1641. 
He became an art student at eleven years of age, and, when sixteen, 
became the favorite pupil of Rubens, and, in later years, excelled his 
great master in portrait painting. He studied also in Italy. By royal 
invitation, he went to England in 1632, and was in great favor with 
Charles I.,— receiving from the king the honor of knighthood, and an 
annual pension of 200 pounds. His fortunes were not prosperous, 
though his skill was pre-eminent, and, with the downfall of Charles, 
Vandyke fared as the spendthrift and dissipated have so often fared. 
He died many years too soon. His estate, owing to the troubles of 



ARTISTS. 85 



the times, was not settled for sixty-two years. His pictures are in 
all noted galleries of Europe, and are highly prized. Windsor Castle 
has over thirty of his paintings. Few of the great masters have left 
so many well authenticated works. 

RUBENS, Sir Peter Paul, a Flemish painter, was 

born in Siegen, Germany, June 29, 1577, and died in Antwerp, May 
30, 1640. He became " The Prince of Painters." Not less than 1800 
pictures were produced in whole or in part by Rubens. They com- 
prise history, portraits, landscapes, animals, and fruit and flower 
pieces. They are widely dispersed throughout Europe, the collection 
in the Louvre being particularly rich. His finest productions are still 
at Antwerp. • ' The Descent from the Cross," in the Antwerp Cathe- 
dral, is regarded as his masterpiece. He spent years of study in Italy. 
He went to Paris to decorate the gallery of the Luxembourg palace. 
While there, he met the Duke of Buckingham, who bought his entire 
collection of works of art for 100,000 florins. He was the first to in- 
troduce landscape painting into England. 

REMBRANDT VAN" RY1ST, Paul Harmens, a Dutch 

painter, was born in Leyden, July 15, 1607, and died in Amsterdam, 
Oct. 8, 1669. He was the son of a miller, and the suflix Yan Ryn was 
derived from his birth in a windmill on the bank of the Rhine. In 
1623 he fitted up a studio in his father's mill. He never went to 
Italy,— the Mecca and the Jerusalem of artists. He never went so far 
as Antwerp,— the home of Rubens. He copied no school of art ; his 
art was his own. His first great work was a portrait of his mother, 
produced in 1628. In 1630 he settled at Amsterdam. Such was his 
fame that pupils came from all parts of Northern Europe,— each 
paying 100 florins a year for instruction. His income became large ; 
his works commanding large prices. In his later years, many of his 
pupils having returned from Italy with ideas and styles of art quite 
unlike those of their great teacher, for a while his works were held 
at little value,— one portrait being sold in Amsterdam for six cents. 
In this way, and by his large expenditures in his art, he became a 
bankrupt in 1656, and passed the remainder of his life in poverty. 
His lightest sketch is now more prized than the most ambitious work 
of any of his rivals, and the "Rembrandt" style of shading, in por- 
traits, is copied by many of the best artists of the present day. His 
paintings number 640, and are valued at from $500 to $20,000. The 
best of them are still owned in Holland. Among the most valued of 
his historical paintings are "Moses Destroying the Tables of the 
Law," "The Sacrifice of Abraham," "The Nativity," "Descent 
from the Cross," " Christ in the Garden with Mary Magdalene," and 
"The Adoration of the Magi." Rembrandt was also a master of the 
graver, many of his etchings being in the British Museum. 



ARTISTS. 



CANOV^, Antonio, an Italian sculptor, was born at 
Possagno, Nov. 1, 1757, and died at Venice, Oct. 13, 1822. He belonged 
to a family that had been stone-cutters for several generations, and 
he was pnt to the same trade. At nine years of age, he wrought out 
two small shrines that attracted attention, and secured him a patron 
and all needed help in the study of his art. "Theseus Vanquishing 
the Minotaur" established his reputation. His groups of " Cupid 
and Psyche Standing," and "Venus and Adonis" are among the 
most celebrated. He modelled a colossal statue of Napoleon, which 
ultimately passed into the possession of the Duke of Wellington. 
Among his later works was a Washington of colossal size in sitting 
posture, which was purchased by North Carolina, and was destroyed 
in 1831 in the burning of the State-house at Raleigh. He accumulated 
a large fortune, and distributed it in works of charity. He received 
various orders of knighthood. 

THORWALDSEN, Bertel, a Danish sculptor, was 
born at sea between Iceland and Denmark, Nov. 19, 1770. His father 
was an Icelander. At eleven years of age, he entered the free school 
of the Academy of Arts in Copenhagen, and, after gaining several 
other prizes, in 1793 he won the grand prize, which entitled him to a 
small stipend for studying abroad. He toiled at his art in Rome for 
several years before his genius attracted attention. He was about to 
return in discouragement, when his "Jason Bearing the Golden 
Fleece " secured him a liberal sum from an English lover of art. His 
earliest efforts, " Mars," " Mercury," "Ganymede," and others, are 
among the best modern imitations of the antique. In 1819 he made a 
brief visit to Copenhagen, — his journey through Italy and Germany 
being one continuous ovation, and his welcome in Copenhagen being 
even royal. Returning to Rome in 1820, he began a series of religious 
works, which made him one of the masters of sculpture. Among 
these is "Christ and the Twelve Apostles," now in the cathedral 
church of Copenhagen. His largest single work is the colossal lion 
near Lucerne, Switzerland, commemorating the Swiss Guards who 
fell in defending the Tuileries, Aug. 10, 1792. Among his statues in 
bronze are "Schiller," at Stuttgart, and "Gutenberg," at Mentz. His 
work in bass-relief excelled any wrought by his cotemporaries. His 
return to Copenhagen, in 1838, was in a frigate furnished by the Dan- 
ish government, and he was lodged in the royal palace. He was 
engaged until within a few hours of his death upon a bust of Luther, 
which he left unfinished. He died suddenly of heart disease, March 
24, 1844. He bequeathed his entire collection of works of art, and the 
most of his large property to the city of Copenhagen to establish and 
support a museum. 



ARTISTS. 87 



REYNOLDS, Sir Joshua, an English painter, was 

born at Plympton, July 1G, 1723, and died in London, Feb. 23, 1792. 
Asa portrait painter, he was at the head of his profession in England. 
His portraits of women and children are among the most admired 
productions of modern art. Many of his works are hastening to de- 
cay, owing co the materials used in coloring. On the foundation of 
the Royal Academy in 1768, Reynolds was made its president, ami 
also was knighted. He retained his presidency till his death, and 
delivered fifteen annual discourses on art. Johnson, Goldsmith, 
Burke, Garrick, and other noted literary men were his intimate 
associates, and he was one of the founders of the "Literary Club" 
so famous in their day. While studying his art in Italy, he took a 
cold in the Vatican, which resulted in permanent deafness. He never 
married. As early as 1762, his professional income was 6000 guineas. 
His estate was estimated at 80,000 pounds. There are nearly 700 en- 
gravings from his paintings ; most of them admirably rendered in 
mezzotint. " All my life," said Reynolds, when asked how long it 
took him to make a certain picture. 

WEST, Benjamin, was born of Quaker parents in 

Springfield, Pa., Oct. 10, 1738. At seven years of age, he began to 
make colored drawings from nature, and at nine years of age made a 
picture which, he asserted sixty-seven years later, contained touches 
never surpassed by himself. In 1760 he went to Italy for art study. 
In 1763 on his way home, he visited London, and was induced to take 
up his residence in that city. George III. was his patron and friend 
for nearly forty years. He painted or sketched about four hundred 
pictures, besides leaving two hundred drawings at his death. One of 
his early pictures, "Death of Wolfe," inaugurated a new era in the 
history of British art by his giving his figures the costume appropri- 
ate to their time and character. Reynolds and others endeavored to 
dissuade him from this experiment, but West persevered, and Rey- 
nolds was one of the first to congratulate him on his success. He 
executed a series of twenty-eight pictures for the chapel of Windsor 
Castle, illustrating the progress of revealed religion. " Christ Heal- 
ing the Sick," and "Death on the Pale Horse" are among his most 
noted works. About 1792 the knighthood was proffered him, but 
he declined the honor. He succeeded Reynolds as president of the 
Royal Academy, and, one year excepted, held the office till his death, 
March 11, 1820. 

LANDSEER, Sir Edwin, a painter of animals, was 

bora in London in 1S03, and died there, Oct. 1, 1873. Painting was his 
native art. While a child, he was in the fields painting domestic 
animals at rest and in motion. With but few lessons under pro- 
fessional teachers, he became incomparably the best animal painter 



COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 



of his times. Among his best works are "The Return from Deer- 
Stalking," "The Illicit Whiskey-Still," "Sir Walter Scott and His 
Dogs," " The Drover's Departure," "The Stag at Bay," "The Ran- 
dom Shot," and "Children of the Mist." Many honors were given 
him. He was knighted in 1850. A sale of his works in the year after 
his death realized 73,400 pounds. He never married. He was buried 
in St. Paul's Cathedral, beside Reynolds and Turner. 

DORE, Paul Gustave, a French artist, was born in 

Strasburg, Jan. 10, 1833. He early showed a passion for drawing, 
and his father placed him under the best art teachers of France. 
His first series of sketches, "Labors of Hercules," were published 
when he was fifteen years of age, though a series of lithographs were 
published four years earlier. Besides his illustrations for periodicals, 
he illustrated " Paradise Lost," "Don Quixote," Tennyson's "Idyls 
of the King," and many other popular works. His illustrations of the 
Bible place him foremost among artists in picturing sacred themes. 
In oil paintings, he has produced "Two Mothers," "Alsatian 
Women," and "A Mountebank Who Has Stolen a Child." Among his 
most noted pictures are "Paolo and Francesa di Rimini," "Rebel 
Angels Cast Down," "Neophyte," "Triumph of Christianity," and 
" Christ Leaving the Pretorium." This last measures thirty feet by 
twenty. It is said that he executed over 45,000 designs. He died in 1883. 

BONHEUR, Rosa, a French painter, was born at 
Bordeaux, March 22, 1822. Her father was an artist of considerable 
merit. Two brothers are artists, and a sister has charge of the free 
school of design for girls at Paris, of which institution Rosa became 
a directress in 1849. In 1841 she sent her first contribution to the 
French exhibition,— " Goats and Sheep," and " Two Rabbits." She 
has made animals her constant study, visiting stables, shambles, 
and fairs, and studying their structure and habits under all circum- 
stances. In making "The Horse Fair," she worked eighteen months, 
attending the horse-market in Paris regularly twice a week during 
the time. Other noted pictures by her hand are "The Horse for 
Sale," "Horses in a Meadow," "A Drove on the Road," "Cows 
and Sheep in a Hollow Road," "Deer Crossing an Open Space," 
and " Bucks in Repose." She has tried her hand at sculpture, and, 
in 1848, took a first-class medal for a bronze group. In 1865 she 
was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. 



COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 

MOZART, Wolfgang, a German composer, was born 
in Salzburg, Jan. 27, 1756. His father was an eminent musician. 



COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 89 

When only three years old, Wolfgang would strike chords upon the 
harpsichord, and readily learned passages in his sister's music lesson. 
In his fifth year, he composed little melodies with simple but correct 
harmonies. At seven he played upon the violin at sight. At this 
time, he said to a violinist, "Your violin is tuned half a quarter of a 
note lower than mine here, if you have left it as it was when I last 
played it." The violins were compared, and young Mozart was 
found correct. He was a musical prodigy. With his father and 
sister, he visited several cities of Europe, and won great applause for 
his rare genius as singer, composer, and performer. His father did 
not allow Wolfgang to depend upon his genius for music, but secured 
for him the most thorough instruction in his art. As early as twenty- 
one years of age, he was the first pianist, one of the first organists, 
and in the highest rank of violinists in Europe, and the author of 
more than 200 compositions. For many years, he struggled with pov- 
erty, and with various obstacles thrown in his way by less gifted but 
envious and jealous musicians. He died just as fortune was turning 
richly in his favor, Dec. 5, 1791,— not quite thirty-six years old. His 
last work was upon a requiem for some unknown patron. He left it 
unfinished, and fancied, in his last days, that he was composing it 
for his own obsequies. He left more than 800 compositions. Several 
generations of musicians have been educated upon the works of Mo- 
zart. Haydn said to Mozart's father, "I look upon your son as the 
greatest composer of whom I ever heard." 

HANDEL, George Frederick, was born in Halle, 

Germany, Feb. 23, 1685. His father sternly insisted upon his studying 
law, even forbidding him to study music; but his inborn passion was 
stronger than parental authority. He studied law some, but music 
more, though he did not abandon law and make music his profession 
till he was eighteen years of age,— several years after his father's 
death. He availed himself of the best instruction in Germany and 
Italy, and became, in the estimation of Beethoven, "the greatest 
composer that ever lived." He had the power of wielding large 
masses of tone with the most perfect ease and felicity. His pre- 
eminence was in the dramatic oratorio. In "Messiah," "Israel in 
Egypt," "Samson," and " Judas Maccabaeus," he reached a height 
where he stands alone. The rapidity of his composition was remark- 
able, — "Messiah," his most noted production, being the work of only 
twenty-three days. He was forty -eight years old before he published 
any of his great works. His greatest work was produced when he 
was fifty-six years old. Financially, he was a man of various for- 
tunes and misfortunes. He amassed 10,000 pounds, and then, in 
misadventures in musical enterprises, lost all; and, later, paid all his 
debts, and accumulated 20,000 pounds. One concert in London, " for 



90 COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 

the benefit of Mr. Handel," netted 800 pounds. Though totally blind 
for seven years before his death, the grand old man kept up his 
annual series of concerts till the last. April 6, 1759, he listened for 
the last time to his " Messiah." Seven days later, April 13, on the 
17th anniversary of his first performance of that greatest of oratorios, 
he breathed his last at the age of seventy-four years. He resided in 
London the most of his life, and there he died. 

HAYDN, Joseph, a German composer, was born at 
Rohrau, Lower Austria, March 31, 1732. His musical genius attracted 
attention while he was yet but a child. From eight to sixteen years 
of age, he was under the care of Reuter, chapel-master of a cathedral 
in Vienna. Those were hard years for the boy. Only two lessons in 
music were given him by his master in this time, and, his voice fail- 
ing, his master sought occasion to dismiss him. At sixteen, the poor 
boy was turned into the streets of Vienna with a thread-bare coat and 
three bad shirts. He went to his parents, but they could not aid him. 
He returned to Vienna, and took up his abode in a garret of a five- 
story house, where he had neither stove nor fire-place, and where 
rain and snow came through the roof. He found teachers for him- 
self, and opportunities to give instruction, and also was employed in 
choirs. At twenty- seven years of age, he was engaged, at a salary of 
200 florins and board, as a music director and composer. The next 
year, he became chapel-master for an Hungarian prince on a salary 
of 400 florins, which was afterward increased to 1,000. He held this 
office thirty years, living at Esterhaz, Hungary, eight or nine months 
of the year, but spending his winters in Vienna. After his patron's 
death, Haydn took up his residence in Vienna. His fame had gone 
abroad. He was reputed a prince of composers,— Mozart only out- 
ranking him. Twice he went to London, remaining a year and a 
half each time. George III. endeavored to persuade him to make 
London his home. Oxford made him Doctor of Music. Returning 
to Vienna, he was hailed as the favorite of Austria. It was in his 
sixty-eighth year that he produced his magnificent composition, 
"The Creation." Haydn made an era in the musical art. In magni- 
tude, number, originality, and beauty of composition, he has few 
peers, and perhaps no superior. For more than half a century, music 
flowed from his pen in a continuous stream ; always attractive, 
always new, always cheerful, often grand, sometimes subline, never 
tragic. For a few years at the last, he was an invalid. His last ap- 
pearance in public was to witness again his " Creation,"— March 27, 
1808. At the famous passage, " and there was light," as the audience 
became tumultuous with applause, Haydn, waving his hand toward 
heaven, exclaimed : " It comes from there ! " May 10, 1809, while his 
servants were helping him to rise and dress, the first shots of the 



COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 91 

invading French army were heard, and the great musician said: 
"Children, fear not; where Haydn is, no misfortune can befall you." 
He died May 31, in his 78th year. Handel's playing awakened 
Haydn's genius for composition, and it was in a concert at Vienna, 
given by Haydn in 1795, that Beethoven played his own first piano- 
forte concerto. 

MENDELSSOHIsT-BARTHOLDY, Felix, was born in 
Hamburg, Feb. 3, 1809. His father, out of regard to his wife, added 
her family name, Bartholdy, to his own. His grandfather, Moses 
Mendelssohn, was an eminent Jew; but Felix was brought up in the 
Lutheran faith, his father having become a convert to Christianity. 
His life was comparatively free from struggles and cares. He devoted 
himself exclusively to his profession. He was beloved for the beauty 
of his character, as well as admired for his genius. Before he was 
six years old, he was a skilful pianist. At nine years of age, he gave 
his first public concert in Berlin, and the next year, gave a concert 
in Paris. Some of his compositions published when he was fifteen 
years of age still hold a place among classical musical works. At 
seventeen, he composed his overture to Shakspeare's "Midsummer 
Night's Dream," which was received in England with unbounded 
enthusiasm. He was more appreciated in England than in his own 
country, chiefly on account of his sacred music. His fame rests 
largely upon two oratorios, "St. Paul" and "Elijah." This last, 
composed for the Birmingham festival and first brought out Aug. 26, 
1S46, was the work of nine years. In his grief on account of the 
death of his sister, he sickened, and died at Leipsic, Nov. 4, 1847. He 
used to say to admiring friends and flatterers, " Stick your claws 
into me ; do not tell me what you like, but what you do not like." 

BEETHOVEN, Ludwig- van, one of the greatest of 
musical composers, was born at Bonn, Dec. 16 or 17, 1770. At four 
years of age, he had his daily task upon the harpsichord. The best 
of teachers were secured for him. In his twenty- second year he 
went to Vienna, and became the favorite of people of the first rank, 
and was regarded by good judges as at the head of his profession. 
At twenty- seven years of age, his hearing began to fail, and, finally, 
because of deafness, he had to forego all society. At thirty years of 
age, he wrote, "I can truly say that I pass a wretched existence; for 
the last two years I have almost entirely shunned society, because it 
is impossible to tell people I am deaf!" Several years of his life 
were embittered by litigation in behalf of a nephew, who proved ut- 
terly unworthy of the great affection of his uncle. His final sickness 
and death were due to a journey in the wet, cold days of December, 
1826,— a journey undertaken chiefly in the interest of the graceless 
young man. He died in Vienna, March 26, 1S27. Beethoven's mission 



92 COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 

was to perfect instrumental music as the language of feeling and of 
the sentiments. His principal compositions were nine symphonies. 
He wrote for the orchestra. 

CHOPIN, Frederic Francois, a Polish pianist and 

composer, was born near Warsaw, Feb. 10, 1810. As a composer, 
Chopin ranks in the first class, though he produced no great con- 
tinuous work. Liszt, his friend and biographer, says, "Chopin's 
works have passages of exceeding interest, beauty, and grandeur." 
He went to Paris when about twenty years old, where he won im- 
mediate and brilliant fame as a composer, and by private concerts. 
He rarely appeared in public. For ten years previous to 1844, he gave 
but one concert. In 1836 he formed an intimacy with ''George Sand," 
which continued till 1847. In 1848 he made his long projected visit to 
England, and met with an enthusiastic reception. While there he 
entered much into society, and gave many private concerts, and also 
three public concerts,— the last being a • c benefit " for the Poles. Re- 
turning to Paris utterly broken in his constitution, he died, Oct. 17, 
1849. 

STRAUSS, Johann, was born in Vienna in 1825. He 
belongs to a musical family. His father and two brothers were popu- 
lar composers. The published compositions of the four Strausses 
are about 1,100 in number, and are nearly all " dance music." A 
" Strauss Waltz" is the most popular music of its kind. For many 
years, Johann has been music director of the court balls in Vienna. 
In 1872 he visited the United States, and conducted the orchestra of 
1,000 performers in his own compositions at the peace jubilee in 
Boston. During that visit, he gave three concerts in New York. 
Besides his 400 compositions of "dance music," he has written 
several operettas. 

LISZT, Franz, an Hungarian pianist and composer, 
was born at Raiding, Oct. 22, 1811. In his ninth year, he had part in 
a public concert in Presburg, which won him such favor with several 
wealthy Hungarian noblemen that they proposed to aid in his musical 
education for the next six years. He studied in Vienna, Munich, and 
Paris. His education completed, he made several lucrative concert 
tours. Losing his father in 1827, and becoming about the same time 
unhappily attached to a woman of rank, Liszt almost wholly relin- 
quished his art for several years. The appearance of Paganini in 
Paris in 1831, roused him to resume his profession with a purpose to 
become the Paganini of the pianoforte. After an interval of eight 
years, he re-appeared in Paris, and thence went to Italy, and thence to 
Vienna and Pesth, and everywhere was received with enthusiasm,— 
in the latter city a sword of honor and the rights of citizenship being 
bestowed upon him. From 1838 to 1847, his career was a succession 



COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 93 

of triumphs. About this time, he made his home at Weimar, —having 
been appointed conductor of court concerts and the opera. He made 
Weimar one of the chief musical centers of Europe, and there intro- 
duced Richard Wagner to public notice. In this period, he wrote his 
best musical compositions. In 1861 he went to Rome, and became a 
great favorite of the people. In 1865 he took orders, and has since 
been known as abbe Liszt, and has devoted himself principally to 
sacred music. In 1871 he suddenly offered his villa at Rome for sale, 
and took up his residence at Pesth. In 1874— the 50th year of his 
career — he gave to the museum of Pesth his valuable collection of 
curiosities and works of art. He stands at the head of his profession 
in producing difficult and moral effects. He has been one of the most 
prolific of composers,— his works numbering several hundred, and 
belonging to every department of his art. He has ever been a ready 
and gratuitous helper of young composers. In 1839 an attempt was 
jnade to erect a monument to Beethoven in Bonn. At the end of six 
months, only 600 francs had been secured. Liszt contributed the 
whole amount to complete the work,— 60,000 francs. 

MASON, Lowell, one of the first of American com- 
posers, was born in Medfield, Mass., Jan. 8, 1792, and died in Orange, 
N. J., Aug. 11, 1872. He had no inclination to practical matters, but 
a marvelous facility for mastering any kind of a musical instrument. 
At twenty years of age he went to Savannah, and spent ten or fifteen 
years, — giving musical instruction, leading choirs, and conducting 
musical conventions. In 1821 he published the " Boston Handel 
and Haydn Collection of Church Music." This work went through 
twenty-two editions, and brought $10,000 to the treasury of the 
Handel and Haydn Society. In 1827 several gentlemen secured his 
return to Boston to take charge of three church choirs, guaranteeing 
him an income of $2,000 a year for two years. The population of 
Boston was then less than 45,000. About 1832 he founded the "Boston 
Academy of Music," with the one object of promoting the musical 
education of the people by way of teaching the young to sing. He 
aimed at introducing musical instruction in the public schools. 
To overcome prejudices and to prove the feasibility of his idea, he 
gathered classes of boys for gratuitous instruction, and had boys in 
his choirs. The City Council failing in 1836 to appropriate funds to 
inaugurate musical instruction in the schools, Lowell Mason offered 
his services gratis for a year in the Hawes school. In 1838 he had 
won the day, and music came to be taught in the city schools gener- 
ally. The " Singing-School, " and the "Musical Convention " are two 
of Mason's gifts to America. He educated the American people out 
of a false and into a true style of sacred music. He regarded music 
as the handmaid of devotion, and gave character to his choir re- 
hearsals by first offering prayer. His musical publications are 



94 COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 

counted by the score. His musical library was the largest and most 
valuable in the United States. Since his decease, his family have 
donated the collection to Yale College. In 1855 the University of 
New York gave him the honorary degree of Doctor of Music,— the 
first instance of this title in America. 

WAGNER, Richard, a German composer, was born 

in Leipsic, May 22, 1813. At twelve years of age, he wrote plays. 
His thoughts first turned toward music as a profession when he was 
fifteen years old. It was Beethoven's symphonies that wakened 
Wagner's musical nature. He became musical director at the Magde- 
burg theater in 1834. Subsequently, he held a like position at Konigs- 
berg, and, still later, at Riga. His first real success was achieved at 
Dresden, in 1842, by his opera "Rienzi." In 1850 " Lohengrin" was 
brought out at Weimar through the influence of his stanch friend, 
Liszt. "Tannhauser," which failed in several other cities, was re- 
ceived with great favor at Vienna in 1862. In 1870 Wagner married 
a daughter of Liszt, and, in the same year, projected his greatest 
undertaking,— the erection of a theater expressly for his four great 
operas, which he had built up on the myths of the "Nibelungen 
ring." The theater was erected in Baireuth, Bavaria. It was the 
work of six years to secure the theater, and prepare for the great 
performance. It took place in the summer of 1876. Wagner was a 
voluminous writer upon the principles and theories of music. He 
composed some of the music used at the opening of the American 
centennial in 1876. During the years before his genius gained recog- 
nition, he knew the bitterness of want,— almost to starvation. He 
died in 1883. 

BULL, Ole Borneman, a Norwegian violinist, was 

born at Bergen, Feb. 5, 1810. His passion for music was irrepressible. 
At five years of age, he owned a violin and could play it. To him the 
violin was a thing of life; in his hand it uttered thoughts and feelings 
that could not be clothed in common language. At nineteen years of 
age, he had dropped other studies for music. For four or five years, 
his life was one of the severest struggles with poverty. Older musi- 
cians hindered his success. He was strongly tempted to suicide. 
In this period, the cyclopedias tell of a duel, resulting in a homicide; 
the story has very little truth ; he only parried his opponent's blows, 
and left him with the slightest flesh-wound. In these years, he pur- 
sued his art at Paris, in various cities of Italy, and other countries. 
His first great triumph was in Bologna, when about twenty-three 
years old. From that day until his death,— a period of nearly fifty 
years, — his star was ever in the ascendant, and it was not dim at the 
very last. He visited all the great cities of Europe again and again, 
and always was received with increasing favor. He first came to the 



COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 9.1 

United States in November, 1843, and, at his first concert in New York, 
won the enthusiastic good will of the Americans. For thirty-seven 
years, he spent many of his winters in the United States. He traveled 
more miles, and was heard by more people than any other cotempo- 
ary artist. In one season in the United States, he gave 200 concerts, 
which netted him $80,000. He was once paid 800 pounds for one 
night in Liverpool. His generous and confiding nature was often im- 
posed upon. In one season, he gave forty-six concerts in England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, and was cheated by his business agent out of 
all the proceeds. Finding many of his countrymen in the United 
States, he thought to better their condition by gathering them into a 
colony, and so he bought about 150,000 acres in Potter Co., Penn., 
and proceeded at great expense to found the colony. After a few 
years, he found that the lawyer who negotiated the purchase was an 
utter scoundrel, and had given him only fraudulent titles, and Ole 
Bull was left a bankrupt, and for years was persecuted in litigation. 
Again and again his violin was attached ; and when he visited the 
lawyer to remonstrate and demand amends, the fiend, that he was, 
sought to murder Ole Bull with poisoned food. Though very hungry, 
the intended victim escaped by experiencing, after being seated at 
the table, a sudden and revolting aversion to food. When the 
columns of the New York Herald were offered to Mr. Bull for any 
answer he might wish to make to his critics and enemies, this was 
his reply : "I tink, Mr. Bennett, it is best tey writes against me, and 
I plays against tem." He celebrated his 66th birthday by climbing 
the pyramid of Cheops unaided, and, on its summit, playing his fa- 
vorite composition, "Saeterbesbg." Longfellow celebrates this "rapt 
musician " in his " Tales of the Wayside Inn." He was the ' ■ poet of 
the violin," but, though gifted by nature, his violin practice of sever- 
al hours a day for forty years had much to do in making him the 
prince of violinists. As a performer, he was mighty, wonderful, in- 
describable. He could play four parts on his violin at the same time. 
If one string broke, he would finish on three strings, and the fact 
would not be noticed by the most critical. His last winter was spent 
in Cambridge, Mass. Longfellow and others celebrated with him his 
70th and last birthday. Late in June, 1880, he sailed for his home in 
dear old Norway. He died at his home in Lyso, August 18, 1880,— 
loved and lamented as only a few have ever been. The newspapers of 
the realm were put in mourning, — an honor never before given except 
to royalty. The whole civilized world spoke his praise, — sorrowing 
for a friend. "After the coffin had been put in the grave, and the 
relatives had gone away, .... hundreds of the poor peasants of the 
country came near, and each threw in a green bough, or a fern, or a 
flower, — the only token he was rich enough to bring. The grave was 
filled to the brim." Bergen has no other grave so royal. 



96 COMPOSERS AND MUSICIANS. 

LIKD, Jenny, a Swedish vocalist, was born in Stock- 
holm, Oct. 6, 1821. From infancy she manifested a remarkable talent 
for singing. At nine years of age, she entered the musical academy 
at Stockholm, and in a year was deemed fitted for the stage. For two 
years, she was the delight of Stockholm audiences. Then her peerless 
voice failed for four years. At sixteen, her voice was found to be 
purer and more powerful than ever. For two years, she was the 
reigning prima donna of her native city. For instruction and further 
improvement of her voice, she went to Paris in 1841. In 1844 she sang 
in Berlin, and, in 1847, made her first appearance in London, and there 
excited a sensation almost without a parallel in the history of the 
opera in England. In 1850 she came to the United States, under a 
contract with P. T. Barnum, to give a series of 150 concerts. Her first 
concert was in New York, and, the tickets being sold at auction, the 
first choice of seats commanded several hundred dollars. Jenny 
Lincl's own share of that one evening's concert was $10,000, and she 
bestowed it all on local charities. Having given ninety -five concerts, 
she honorably canceled the contract, and thereafter sang on her own 
account. While in Boston, she married Otto Goldschmidt. Return- 
ing to Europe, she resided a while at Dresden, and, in 1858, removed 
to London. Since then, she has not resumed her place upon the 
stage, except in an occasional concert to benefit the poor. 

KELLOGG, Clara Louisa, an American singer, was 

born of New England parents in Sumter, S. C, in 1842. At the age of 
seven years, she could read difficult music at sight. She was educated 
in this country, and first sang in public in New York, Feb. 27, 1861, 
and, in March following, in Boston. From the first, her career was 
one of almost assured success. From 1865 to 1868, she was under en- 
gagement with the manager of the Italian opera in New Y^ork,— her 
fame constantly increasing. November 2, 1867, she appeared with 
great success in Her Majesty's opera, London, in " Faust." She has 
become the foremost of native American singers. 

PATTI, Adelina Maria Clorinda, an operatic 

singer, was born in Madrid, April 9, 1843. In 1844 the Patti family 
removed to New York, where Adalina sang in concerts when only 
eight years old, and, Nov. 24, 1859, appeared as prima donna in the 
Academy of Music. Her success was immediate. In May, 1861, she 
sang in London, and, in Nov. 1862, appeared in Paris. Her success 
in Europe was as great as in America. In Russia her popularity is 
almost unrivalled. Her voice is one of rare beauty, range, and flexi- 
bility, and she has exceptional powers as an actress. Her pre- 
eminence is in passages requiring pathos and sentiment. July 29, 
1868, she was married to a French nobleman, the Marquis de Caux, 
from whom she was divorced in 1876. 



"The value of a thought cannot be told." 



"Every beautiful sentiment implanted in 
the fertile mind of youth, is a seed-truth 
that will yield a perennial harvest of good 
thoughts developed into worthy acts" 



PROSE AND POETRY., 



John S. C. Abbott.] 

We can usually find time, even in the midst of the 
busiest life, to devote a few moments, every day, to any 
object which really interests us. 

Reproach can be easily borne when the soul is sus- 
tained by the conviction of right. 

It requires accomplished generalship to avail one's self 
of the results of victory. 

Nowhere will aristocratic intolerance allow demo- 
cratic servitude to read the Bible. 



Joseph Addison.] 

A cheerful temper, joined with innocence, will 
lighten sickness, poverty, and affliction, convert igno- 
rance into an amiable simplicity, and render deformity 
itself agreeable. 

Talking with a friend is nothing else than thinking 
aloud. 

'Tis not in mortals to command success, 

But we'll do more, Sempronius ; we'll deserve it. 

When love's well-tim'd, 'tis not a fault to love. 

It will be time enough to enjoy an estate when it 
comes into our hands. 



100 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Louis Agassiz.] 

I appeal to you to be generous to your own public 
institutions. 

Life is a fact, and so is death ; but until we know 
more of them, our theories will fall to dust. 

Of course God created the world ; but if he had told 
us just how he created it, we, who are as skeptical as we 
are mortal, would not rest content until, in aspiring to 
create another, we had utterly failed. 

I feel I can do some service, and I have the most in- 
tense desire to do it. 

I have not time to make money. 



T. B. Aldrich.] 

What mortal knows 

Whence comes the tint and odor of the rose ° 

What probing deep 

Has ever solved the mystery of sleep ? 

What is a day to an immortal soul ! 
A breath, no more. 

Only the sea intoning, 
Only the wainscot-mouse, 
Only the wild wind moaning 
Over the lonely house. 



Hans Christian xVndersen.] 

THROUgH Jenny Lind I first became sensible of the 
holiness there is in art. 

The " Danish Walter Scott" was the name of honor by 
which many unworthily called me. 

I feel that 1 am fortune's child, — so many of the 
noblest and best of my time have met me with affection 
and sincerity. 

A poet's way is not by politics, — he has his mission 
in the service of beauty. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 101 

Andersen.] 

There are people whom it only requires a few days to 
know and to love. 

We (Dickens and I) shook hands, looked into each 
other's eyes, spoke, and understood one another. 



Michael Angelo.] 

That unfinished block is my master, and I am its 
obedient pupil. 

Trifles make perfection, and perfection is no trifle. 

We die only once, and we return not back again to 
make amends for that which we have done amiss. 

Genius is eternal patience. 

Ill hath he chosen his part who seeks to please 
The worthless world. 

The more the marble wastes, 
The more the statue grows. 

Sculpture and painting, rival arts, 

Ye can no longer soothe my breast ; 
'Tis love divine alone imparts 

The promise of a future rest ; 
On that my steadfast soul relies, — 

My trust the Cross, my hope the skies. 



John J. Audubon.] 

They are not the soft sounds of the flute or the haut- 
boy that I hear, but the sweeter notes of nature's own 
music. 

Lord Bacon.] 

The good things which belong to prosperity are to be 
wished, but the good things which belong to adversity 
are to be admired. 

To ask questions rightly is the half of knowledge. 

I hold every man a debtor to his profession. 



102 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Bacon.] 

He that cannot forgive others, breaks down the bridge 
over which he must pass himself. 

No pleasure is comparable to the standing on the 
vantage-ground of truth. 

The virtue of prosperity is temperance, but the virtue 
of adversity is fortitude. 

By taking revenge, a man is but even with his enemy ; 
but in passing it over he is his superior. 

A little philosophy inclineth a man's mind to athe- 
ism. 



George Bancroft.] 

It may be asserted with truth that modern civilization 
sprung into life with our religion, and faith in its prin- 
ciples is the life-boat on which humanity has at divers 
times escaped the most threatening perils. 

A wrong principle always leads to a practical error. 

In the cabin of the Mayflower, humanity recovered its 
rights, and instituted government on the basis of "equal 
laws" for the "general good." 

The only fit punishment for error is refutation. 

A government that could devise the massacre of St. 
Bartholomew was neither worthy nor able to found new 
states. 

The counsels of injustice are always fearfully avenged. 

The fortunes of the human race are embarked in a 
life-boat and cannot be wrecked. 

The American Declaration of Independence was the 
beginning of new ages. 



Henry Ward Beecher.] 

I do not say it is a misfortune to be born rich, but I 
do say, of one hundred men born with money and one 
hundred born without it, the chances to find virtue and 
happiness are better in the last hundred. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 103 

Beechek.] 

Some plants take hold by winding around, some by 
little roots, some by tendrils, some by hooks, and some 
by leaves that catch like anchors. But these things take 
hold not for the sake of staying where they take hold, but 
only that they may climb higher. 

Ix this world it is not what we take up, but what we 
give up that makes us rich. 

Of all music, that which reaches farthest into heaven 
is the beating of a loving heart. 

All which is hidden in obscurity in this world, is re- 
served for disclosure in the world to come. 
"" An anchor that not only deceives men with the appear- 
ance of safety, but gives way in the hour of danger, is 
worse than none at all, — a hope that holds a man when 
he does not need holding, but breaks when he does. 

The gravest events dawn with no more noise than the 
morning star makes in rising. 

Zero begins half way between right and wrong; and 
when a man is enthroned on zero in moral things, you 
may understand about where he is. 

As long as a man looks in upon himself he is like one 
that opens a trap-door and looks down to see the stars. 
The stars are not to be seen by looking that way. 

The highest Order that was ever instituted on the earth 
is the Order of Faith. 

There is majesty in the thought of mercy, and wonder 
in the graciousness of God, when we feel that we are 
sinful. 

It is a man dying with his harness on that angels love 
to take. 

Thought is the blossom ; action is the fruit right be- 
hind it. 

A diamond that glows in the sunlight flashes yet more 
beautifully in the night. 



104 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Beethoven.] 

The barriers are not erected which can say to aspiring 
talents and industry, 'Thus far and no farther.' 

A certain class of piano-forte performers seem to lose 
intelligence and feeling in proportion as they gain in 
dexterity of fingering. 



William Black.] 

Away over the hay-field the lark floated in the blue, 
making the air quiver with his singing; the robin, 
perched on a fence, looked at us saucily, and piped a few 
notes by way of remark ; the blackbird was heard, flute- 
throated, down in the hollow recesses of the woods ; and 
the thrush in a holly-tree by the wayside, sang out his 
sweet, clear song, that seemed to rise in strength as the 
wind awoke a sudden rustling through the long woods of 
birch and oak. 

A man that takes good care of himself is slow to be- 
lieve that he is growing middle-aged. 

Daniel Boone.] 

No populous cities, with all the varieties of commerce 
and stately structures, could afford so much pleasure to 
my mind as the beauties of nature. 

I, with others, have fought Indians, but I do not 
know that I ever killed one ; if I did, it was in battle, 
and I never knew it. 



Charlotte Bronte.] 

A project, not actually commenced, is always un- 
certain. 

I wish all reviewers believed Currer Bell to be a man ; 
they would be more just to him. 

Originality is the pearl of great price in literature, — 
the rarest, the most precious claim by which an author 
can be recommended. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 105 

Robert Browning.] 
'Tis only when they spring to heaven that angels 
Reveal themselves to yon. They sit all day 
Beside you and lie clown at night by you 
Who care not for their presence, and muse and sleep, 
And all at once they leave you and you know them. 

There is an inmost center in us all 
Where truth abides in fulness ; and to know 
Rather consists in opening out a way 
Whence the imprisoned splertdor may escape, 
Than in effecting entrance for a light 
Supposed to be without. 

Was it something said, 

Something done, 
Vexed him ? was it touch of hand, 

Turn of head? 
Strange ! that very way 

Love begun. 
I as little understand 

Love's decay. 

Active doer, noble liver, 
Strong to labor, sure to conquer. 

Mrs. Browning.] 

It takes a soul 
To move a body ; it takes a high-souled man 
To move the masses. 

The young lambs are bleating in the meadows ; 

The young birds are chirping in the nest ; 
The young fawns are playing w r ith the shadows ; 

The young flowers are blowing towards the west — 
But the young, young children, O, my brothers, 

They are weeping bitterly ! 
They are weeping in the play-time of the others, 

In the country of the free. 



106 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Mrs. Browning.] 

All actual heroes are essential men, 
And all men possible heroes. 

There are nettles everywhere, 
But smooth, green grasses are more common still; 
The blue of heaven is larger than the cloud. 



William Cullen Bryant.] 

The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the 

year, 
Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows 
brown and sear. 

Truth, crushed to earth, shall rise again ; 
The eternal years of God are hers. 

The brightest names that earth can boast 
Just glisten and are gone. 

All that tread 
The globe are but a handful to the tribes 
That slumber in its bosom. 

God hath yoked to guilt her pale tormentor — misery. 



Ole Bull.] 

Art is ever dearly bought, and the artist easily de- 
ceived. 

My relation to the Americans is that of an adopted 
son. 

If I am to go under I will still fight as long as I can, — 
perhaps the sun will shine when I least expect it. 

I w r iLL not, because one man has failed me, expect the 
like of another until it comes. 

Washington not only belongs to the whole world of 
the present generation, for that would Be little to say, — 
he belongs to all future generations. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 107 

BULWER.] 

There is a realm where the rainbow never fades, 
where the stars spread out before us like islands that 
that slumber on the ocean, and where the beautiful 
beings which here pass before us like shadows, will stay 
in our presence for ever. 

What a rare gift is that of manners ! how difficult to 
define, how much more difficult to impart ! Better for a 
man to possess than wealth, beauty, or talent ; they will 
more than supply all. 

If there is a virtue in the world at which we should 
always aim, it is cheeerfulness. 

" Better than fame is still the wish for fame, the con- 
stant trainings for a glorious strife. 

A wise man despises not the opinion of the world, — 
he estimates it at its full value. 

Despair makes victims sometimes victors. 

What men want is not talent, it is purpose ; in other 
words, not the power to achieve, but the will to labor. 

There is no death ! the stars go down 
To rise upon some fairer shore, 
And, bright in Heaven's jeweled crown, 
They shine forevermore. 

Our glories float between the earth and heaven 
Like clouds which seem pavilions of the sun, 
And are the playthings of the casual wind. 

John Bunyan.] 

He that forgets his friend is ungrateful to him ; but he 
that forgets his Savior is unmerciful to himself. 

Dark clouds bring waters when the bright bring none. 

He that is down needs fear no fall. 

Some said, 'John, print it,' others said, 'Not so.' 
Some said, 'It might do good,' others said, 'No.' 



108 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Robert Burns.] 

The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
The man's the gawd for a' that. 

Nae man can tether time or tide. 

Had we never loved sae kindly, 
Had we never loved sae blindly, 
Never met or never parted, 
We had ne'er been broken-hearted ! 

The best laid schemes o' mice and men 

Gang aft agley, 
And leave us naught but grief and pain, 

For promis'd joy. 

Man's inhumanity to man 
Makes countless thousands mourn. 

O wad some power the giftie gie us, 
To see oursels as others see us ! 

An atheist's laugh's a poor exchange 
For Deity offended ! 

Lord Byron.] 
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow. 

He had kept 
The whiteness of his soul, and thus men o'er him wept. 

They never fail who die 
In a great cause. 

A small drop of ink, 
Falling like dew upon a thought, produces 
That which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think. 

My days are in the yellow leaf; 

The flowers and fruits of love are gone ; 
The worm, the canker, and the grief 

Are mine alone. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 109 

Byron.] 

The mountains look on Marathon, 

And Marathon looks on the sea ; 
And musing there an hour alone, 

I dreamed that Greece might still be free. 

With just enough of learning to misquote. 

,r Tis sweet to know there is an eye will mark 
Our coming, and look brighter when we come. 



Calhoun.] 

The Union : next to our liberty the most dear ; may we 
all remember that it can only be preserved by respecting 
the rights of the States, and distributing equally the bene- 
fit and burden of the Union. 

Protection and patriotism are reciprocal. 

Carlyle.] 

No one who has once heartily and wholly laughed can 
be altogether irreclaimably depraved. 

The eternal stars shine out as soon as it is dark enough. 

How does the poet speak to men with power, but by 
being still more a man than they ? 

There is no life of a man, faithfully recorded, but is a 
heroic poem of its sort, rhymed or unrhymecl. 

The greatest of faults is to be conscious of none. 

It can be said of Walter Scott, when he departed he 
took a man's life with him. No sounder piece of British 
manhood was put together in that eighteenth century of 
time. 

Make yourself an honest man, and then you may be 
sure there is one less rascal in the world. 

I don't like to talk with people who always agree with 
me. It is amusing to coquette with an echo a little while, 
but one soon tires of it. 



110 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Carlyle.] 

Blessed is the man who has found his work ; let him 
ask no other blessedness. 

What is extraordinary, try to look at it with your 
own eyes. 

If you do not wish a man to do a thing, you had better 
get him to talk about it ; for, the more men talk, the 
more likely are they to do nothing else. 



William B. Carpfnter.] 

In the higher grades of mental development, there is a 
continual looking upward to something beyond and above 
Man and Material Nature. 



Chalmers.] 

The best inheritance a parent can bequeath a child is a 
virtuous example, a legacy of hallowed remembrances 
and associations. 

Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven. 

The beauty of that holiness which is enshrined in the 
four brief biographies of the Man of Nazareth, has done 
more and will do more to regenerate the world, and bring 
in everlasting righteousness, than all other agencies put 
together. 



Channing.] 

Christianity recognizes the essential equality of man- 
kind ; it is the very soul of freedom ; and no nation under 
heaven has such an interest in it as our own. 

Books are the true levelers. They give to all who 
faithfully use them the society, the spiritual presence, of 
the greatest and best of our race. 

Esteem no man more for thinking as you do, and no 
man the less for thinking otherwise. 
Our neighbor's rights limit our own. 
We want more light, and care not whence it comes. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. Ill 

C HANKING.] 

Every husbandman is living in sight of the works of 
a divine Artist, and how much more would his existance 
be elevated, could he see the glory which shines forth in 
their forms, hues, proportions, and moral expressions ! 

Precept is instruction written in the sand, — the tide 
flows over it and the record is lost. Example is engraven 
on the rock, and the lesson is not soon lost. 

The rich man has no more right to repose than the 
poor. 

It is easy to read, but hard to think. 

No man is fitted to preach or promote Christianity who 
"Is not fitted to die for it. 

Nothing which a pure purpose prompts is lost. 

To be wronged is no disgrace. 



Chaucer.] 

Nowher so besy a man as he ther n' as, 
And yet he semed besier than he was. 

I hold a mouses wit not worth a leke, 
That hath but on hole for to sterten to. 

The firste vertue, sone, if thou wilt lere, 
Is to restreine, and kepen wel thy tonge. 

Mordre wol out, that see we day by day. 



Henry Clay.] 

In all the affairs of human life, social as well as politi- 
cal, I have remarked that courtesies of a small and trivial 
character are the ones that strike deepest to the grateful 
and appreciating heart. 

A nation's character is the sum of its splendid deeds. 

It is the greatest courage to be able to bear the imputa- 
tion of the want of courage. 
I would rather be right than to be president. 



112 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Coleridge.] 
Greatness and goodness are not means, but ends! 
Hath he not always treasures, always friends, 
The good great man? three treasures, — love, and light, 
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath ; 
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night, — 
Himself, his Maker, and the angel Death. 

The stars hang bright above her dwelling 
Silent, as though they watch'd the sleeping earth. 

Alas ! they had been friends in youth ; 
But whispering tongues can poison truth. 

Our myriad-minded Shakspeare. 

A religion, that is, a true religion must consist of 
ideas and facts, both. 

Wilkie Collins.] 

There are very few of us, however dull and unattractive 
we may be to outward appearances,, who have not some 
strong passion, some germ of what is called romance, 
hidden more or less deeply in our natures. 



J. Fenimore Cooper.] 

There are situations in which the mind insensibly 
gives credit to impressions that the reason in common 
disapproves. 

The face of man is the log-book of his thoughts. 

COWPER.] 

Slaves cannot breath in England ; if their lungs 
Receive our air, that moment they are free ; 
They touch our country and their shackles fall. 

God made the country, and man made the town. 

Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day, 
Live till to-morrow, will have passed away. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 113 

COWPER.] 

Domestic happiness, thou only bliss 
Of Paradise that has survived the fall ! 

Absence of occupation is not rest. 

No wild enthusiast ever yet could rest, 

Till half mankind were like himself possess'd. 

The path of sorrow, and that path alone, 
Leads to the land where sorrow is unknown. 



George William Curtis.] 

There is a fashion in literary expression as in every- 
thing else, and in nothing is the mysterious " spirit of the 
age" more evident than in the changes of that fashion 
from time to time. 

Literary style is the garment of thought. 

The newspaper picture of life cannot preserve the true 
proportions of the original, — it is a photograph with a 
disturbed focus. 

Who is it that makes coat-sleeves tight this year and 
loose next year, and ordains that to-day the refinement of 
elegance shall be a white waistcoat at dinner, and that to- 
morrow a white waistcoat at dinner shall be ludicrously 
old-fashioned? 

Conscience and common-sense are hard at work in 
relieving the conditions which breed despair and anarchy. 

During her life, no famous person was more complete- 
ly veiled to the public than George Eliot. 

If circumstances compel it, a wise man will yield. 

It is character, not manner, that makes the gentleman. 

A good thought is like a favorite old coat, — so well 
made that you can never believe it is worn out. 

Common sense is the first necessity with those who 
propose to mend morals or manners. 



114 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Curtis.] 

A gentleman is not an affair of fine broadcloth and 
small boots. 

It is in the detail of life that character is shown. 

Much as we like to give modesty a prop, we take even 
greater pleasure in pulling away the stilts from under 
undue boastfulness. 

A man of gentlemanly instincts and of high culture 
never leaves high culture and gentleness behind him. 

The Father creates no child for whom he has not place 
and portion. 

Charles Darwin.] 

It is those who know little, and not those who know 
much, who so positively assert that this or that problem 
will never be solved by science. 

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation. 

Judging from the past, we may safely infer that not 
one living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a 
distant futurity. 

In some few cases it has been discovered that a very 
trifling change, such as a little more or less water at some 
particular point of growth, will determine whether or not 
a plant will produce seeds. 

In scientific investigations it is permitted to invent any 
hypothesis, and, if it explains various large and inde- 
pendent facts, it rises to the rank of a well-grounded 
theory. 



Sir Humphrey Davy.] 

I have neither riches, nor power, nor birth, to recom- 
mend me ; yet, if I live, I trust I shall not be of less ser- 
vice to mankind and my friends, than if I had been born 
with all these advantages. 

I envy no quality of mind or intellect in others, be it 
genius, power, wit, or fancy. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 115 

DAVY.] 

Life is made up, not of great sacrifices or duties, but of 
little things, in which smiles and kindnesses and small 
obligations, given habitually, are what win and preserve 
the heart and secure comfort. 

A firm religious belief makes life a discipline of good- 
ness, creates new hopes when all earthly hopes vanish, 
and throws over the decay and destruction of existence 
the most gorgeous of all light. 



De Foe.] 

Almighty power upon the whirlwind rode, 
_ And every blast proclaimed aloud, 

There is, there is, there is a God ! - 

There is no necessary wickedness in nature. 

I can never be ungrateful for any service, or to any 
man who offers me a kindness. 

It was a sad life when we must be always killing our 
fellow-creatures to preserve ourselves. 

When I was at home, I was restless to go abroad ; and 
when I was abroad, I was restless to be at home. 

All the good things of this world are no further good 
to us than as they are of use ; and whatever we may heap 
up to give to others, we enjoy only so much as we can 
use, and no more. 



Charles Dickens.] 

Whole ages have fled, and their works decayed, 

And nations have scattered been ; 
But the stout old ivy shall never fade 

From its hale and hearty green. 
The brave old plant in its lonely days 

Shall fatten upon the past ; 
For the stateliest building man can raise 

Is the ivy's food at last. 



116 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

DICKENS.] 

There is no substitute for thorough-going, ardent, sin- 
cere earnestness. 

Whatever was required to be done, the Circumlocu- 
tion Office was beforehand with all the public departments 
in the art of perceiving how not to do. 

In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. 

I love these little people, and it is not a slight thing 
when they, who are so fresh from God, love us. 

I shall miss them at morn and at evening, 

Their song in the school and the street ; 
I shall miss the low hum of their voices, 

And the tramp of their delicate feet. 
When the lessons and tasks are all ended, 

And death says, " the school is dismissed ! " 
May the little ones gather around me, 

To bid me good. night and be kissed! 



Fred. Douglass.] 

All the space between the mind of God and the mind 
of man is filled with undiscovered truth, waiting to be 
discovered. 

One man is a majority if God is on his side. 

War begins where reason ends. 



Dkyden.] 

As jewels incased in a casket of gold, 
Where the richest of treasures we hide ; 

So our purest of thoughts lie deep and untold, 
Like the gems that are under the tide. 

Shakspeare's magic could not copied be ; 
Within that circle none durst walk but he. 

Men are but children of a larger growth. 
Beware the fury of a patient man. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 117 

Drydex.] 

Ill habits gather by unseen degrees, 

As brooks make rivers, rivers make seas. 

Fortune befriends the bold. 

Deserted at his utmost need, 
By those his former bounty fed ; 
On the base earth exposed he lies, 
With not a friend to close his eyes. 

So softly death succeeded her in life, 

She did but dream of heaven, and she was there. 



Du Chaillu.] 

I have traveled in many lands, and within the tropics, 
but I have never seen such glorious nights as those of 
winter in the "Land of the Midnight Sun." All nature 
seems to be in deep repose ; the gurgling brook is silent ; 
the turbulent streams are frozen ; the waves on the lakes, 
upon which the rays of the summer sun played, strike no 
more on the pebbled shores; long crystal icicles hang 
from the mountain-sides and ravines; the rocks, upon 
which the water dripped in summer, appear as sheets of 
glass. The land is clad in a mantle of snow, and the 
pines are the winter jewels of the landscape. 

How beautiful is the trust of that primitive life which, 
in its simplicity, does not see the evil, treachery, trickery, 
and rascality of a higher civilization ! 



Dumas.] 

The proper way to check slander is to despise it ; at- 
tempt to overtake and refute it, and it will outrun you. 

As we advance in life, and in reality separate ourselves 
from the cradle and draw near the tomb, invisible 
threads which attach man to the place of his birth become 
stronger and more tenacious. 

Sadness in pure hearts is the sister of religion. 



118 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

" George Eliot."] 

Any coward can fight a battle when he is sure of win- 
ning ; but give me the man who has pluck to fight when 
he is sure of losing. 

Our deeds determine us, as much as we determine our 
deeds. 

One must be poor to know the luxury of giving. 

God, Immortality, Duty : the first, inconceivable ; the 
second, unbelievable ; the third, peremptory and absolute. 

Affection is the broadest basis of good in life. 

The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have 
no history. 

Conscience is harder than our enemies, 
Knows more, accuses with more nicety. 

The deepest hunger of a faithful heart 
Is faithfulness. 
When Death, the great reconciler, has come, it is never 
our tenderness that we repent of, but our severity. 



R. W. Emerson.] 

If you would lift me, you must be on higher ground. 
If you would liberate me, you must be free. 

No man ever prayed heartily without learning some- 
thing. 

Character gives splendor to youth, and awe to 
wrinkled skin and gray hairs. 

Necessity does everything well. 

Self-respect is the early form in which greatness ap- 
pears. 

Every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of 
some external good. 

Write it on your heart that every day is the best day 
in the year. 

Life is a festival only to the wise. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 119 

Emerson.] 

Nature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on 
young shoulders, and then a young heart beating under 
fourscore winters. 

A simple manly character need never make an apology. 

A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he 
dresses. 

That country is the fairest that is inhabited by the 
noblest minds. 

I cannot dispose of another man's facts, nor allow him 
to dispose of mine. 

Here once the embattled farmers stood, 
And fired the shot heard round the world. 

The silent organ loudest chants 
The master's requiem. 

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, 
Arrives the snow ; and, driving o'er the fields, 
Seems nowhere to alight ; the whited air 
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, 
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end. 

Good by, proud world, I'm going home : 
Thou art not my friend, and I'm not thine. 
Long through thy weary crowds I roam ; 
A river-ark on the ocean brine, 
Long IVe been tossed like the driven foam, 
But now, proud world, I'm going home. 



Benjamin Franklin.] 

A man is sometimes more generous when he has little 
than when he has much money, — probably because he is, 
in the first place, desirous of concealing his poverty. 

A good conscience makes a continual Christmas. 
What maintains one vice would bring up two children. 



120 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Benj. Franklin.] 

Gentlemen, we must now all hang together, or we 
shall surely hang separately. 

There never was a good war or a bad peace. 

If you would have your business done, go ; if not, send. 

Diligence is the mother of good luck. 

Leisure is the time for doing something useful. 

If you would not be forgotten as soon as you are dead, 
either write things worth reading, or do things worth 
writing. 

If a man empties his purse into his head, no man can 
take it from him. 

They that will not be counseled cannot be helped. 

Vessels large may venture more, 
But little boats should keep near shore. 



John C. Fremont.] 

We have thrown away our bodies, and will not turn 
back. 

A true man will always find his best counsel in that 
inspiration which a good cause never fails to give him at 
the instant of trial. 

Permanent and valuable friendships are most often 
formed in contests and struggles. 

Great results are ruled by a wise Providence, and we 
are but a unit in the great plan. 



Robert Fulton.] 
You can take your chance with us. 



Dr. Gall.] 

He who is so blind as not to see by the light of the sun, 
will not do better by the additional light of a candle. 

It is more difficult to sustain a reputation than to create 
one. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 121 

Gibbon. ] 

It has been observed, with ingenuity and not without 
truth, that the command of iron soon gives a nation the 
command of gold. 

An author easily persuades himself that public opinion 
is still favorable to his labors. 

To an active mind indolence is more painful than labor. 

Diligence and accuracy are the only merits which an 
historian may ascribe to himself. 
All that is human must retrograde if it do not advance. 

History is, indeed, little more than the register of the 
crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind. 

Our sympathy is cold to the relation of distant misery. 



Goethe.] 

Man is not born to solve the problem of the universe, 
but to find out what he has to do ; and to restrain himself 
within the limits of his comprehension. 

Each one sees what he carries in his heart. 

Energy will do anything that can be done in this 
world ; and no talents, no circumstances, no opportunities 
will make a man without it. 

I will listen to any one's convictions, but pray keep 
your doubts to yourself. I have plenty of my own. 

A talent is perfected in solitude ; a character, in the 
stream of the world. 

The first and last thing which is required of genius is 
the love of truth. 

The society of women is the element of good manners. 

One man's word is no man's word ; we should quietly 
hear both sides. 

Tell me with whom thou art found, and I will tell thee 
who thou art ; let me know thy chosen employment, and 
I will cast the horoscope of thy future. 



122 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 



Goethe.] 

Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound 
together. 

Who knows how yet the dice may fall? 

Years can ne'er atone 
For one reckless action done. 

You must either serve or govern, 
Must be slave or must be sovereign, 
Must, in fine, be block or wedge, 
Must be anvil or be sledge. 



Goldsmith.] 

Our greatest glory consists not in never falling, but in 
rising every time we fall. 

None but the guilty can be long and completely miser- 
able. 

A traveler of taste at once perceives that the wise 
are polite all the world over, but that fools are polite 
only at home. 

A man he was to all the country dear, 
And passing rich with forty pounds a year. 

Here lies David Garrick, describe we who can, 
An abridgment of all that was pleasant in man. 

Man wants but little here below, 
Nor wants that little long. 

For just experience tells, in every soil, 

That those that think must govern those that toil. 

He cast off his friends, as a huntsman his pack, 
For he knew, when he pleased, he could whistle 
them back. 

But where to find that happiest spot below, 
Who can direct, when all pretend to know ? 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 123 

John B. Gough.] 

It is worth while to remember, as years increase, that 
our lives are not measured by the years we have existed, 
but by the years we have lived. 

All the talent, intellect, or genius that men ever pos- 
sessed, will not compensate for the want of fixed moral 
principle. 

Every moderate drinker could abandon the intoxi- 
cating cup if he would ; every inebriate would if he could. 

He only is a free man who renders strict and steadfast 
obedience to righteous laws. 

A very trifling incident may change the whole course 
of our lives. 

Real, helpless, deserving poverty often hides its rags, 
and shudders at publicity. 

A poor man laughs oftener than a rich man. 

There is no trade so damaging to the community, so 
dangerous to the people, and so hardening to the dealer, 
as the trade in intoxicating liquors. 



Asa Gray.] 

The clothing of the earth with plants and flowers — at 
once so beautiful and so useful, so essential to all animal 
life — is one of the best ways in which the Creator takes 
care of his creatures. And when Christ himself directs 
us to consider with attention the plants around us, — to 
notice how varied, how numerous, and how elegant they 
are, and with what exquisite skill they are fashioned and 
adorned, — we shall find it profitable and pleasant to learn 
the lessons which they teach. 



Thomas Gray.] 

The curfew tolls the knell of parting day, 

The lowing herd winds slowly o'er the lea, 
The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 

And leaves the world to darkness and to me. 



124 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Thomas Gray.] 

Full many a gem of purest ray serene 

The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

And waste its sweetness on the desert air. 

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of power, 
And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave, 

Await alike the inevitable hour, — 
The paths of glory lead but to the grave. 



Grace Greenwood.] 

Men" who have made their fortunes are not those who 
had five thousand dollars given them to start with, but 
started fair with a well-earned dollar or two. 

Too many friends hurt a man more than none at all. 
Men who well love, do their own wooing. 

More than the soul of ancient song is given 
To thee, O poet of to-day ! — thy dower 

Comes, from a higher than Olympian heaven, 
In holier beauty and in larger power. 



Fitz- Greene Halleck.] 

The sun is loveliest as he sinks to rest ; 

The leaves of autumn smile when fading fast ; 
The swan's last song is sweetest. 

There is an evening twilight of the heart, 
When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest. 

One of the few, the immortal names, 
That were not born to die. 

Green be the turf above thee, 

Friend of my better days ; 
None knew thee but to love thee, 

Nor named thee but to praise. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 125 

Handel.] 

I gannot go here, or I gannot go there, but some one 
shall send it to some newsbaber, as how Misder Chorge 
Vrederick Handel did go in a vatderman's wherry, to 
preak his fastd mid Misder Hardgasdle. 



Bret Harte.] 

Last night above the whistling wind, 

I heard the welcome rain, — 
A fusillade upon the roof, 

A tattoo on the pane : 
The keyhole piped ; the chimney top 

A warlike trumpet blew. 

Not yet, O friend ! not yet ; 

All is not true ; 
All is not ever as it seemeth now ; 

Soon shall the river take another blue, 
Soon dies yon light upon the mountain brow. 

What lieth dark, O love, bright day will fill ; 

Wait for the morning, be it good or ill — 
Not yet, O love! not yet. 



Hawthorne.] 

Indeed, we are but shadows; we are not endowed 
with real life, and all that seems most real about us is 
but the thinnest substance of a dream, — till the heart be 
touched. That touch creates us, — then we begin to 
be, — thereby we are beings of reality and inheritors of 
eternity. 

Every day of my life makes me feel more and more 
how seldom a fact is accurately stated. 

No man who needs a monument ever ought to have 
one. 
Old places seem to produce old people. 
Men of cold passions have quick eyes. 



126 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Paul Hamilton Hayne.] 

Art thou in misery, brother? Then, I pray, 
Be comforted ! Thy grief shall pass away. 

Art thou elated ? Ah ! be not too gay ; 
Temper thy joy ; this, too, shall pass away ! 

Art thou in danger? Still let reason sway, 
And cling to hope ; this, too, shall pass away ! 

Tempted, art thou? In all thine anguish lay 
One truth to heart ; this, too, shall pass away ! 

Do rays of loftiest glory round thee play ? 
King-like art thou ? this, too, shall pass away ! 

Whate'er thou art, where'er thy footsteps stray, 
Heed the wise words : This, too, shall pass away ! 

She hath looked in the Sun's, her Prince's eyes, 
With a glance 'twixt passion and shy surprise, 
Like her's who was wakened through smiles and 

tears 
From the spell-bound sleep of a hundred years. 

She has wakened, too, with a soul astir 

For the radiant Lover, Fate sends to her ; 

And the Earth is set to a bridal tune, 

When the Sun-God marries his Sweetheart, June ! 



Mrs. Hemans.] 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to 'wither at the North- wind's breath, 

And stars to set ; — but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death ! 

O call my brother back to me ! 

I cannot play alone ; 
The summer comes with flower and bee, — 

Where is my brother gone ? 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 



Mrs. Hemans.] 

There^ beauty all around our paths, 

If but our watchful eyes 
Can trace it 'midst familiar things, 

And through their lowly guise. 



Alas for love, if thou wert all, 
And naught beyond, O Earth ! 



Patrick Henry.] 

Caesar had his Brutus, — Charles the First, his Crom- 
well, — and George the Third — ("Treason!" cried the 
speaker) — may profit by their example. If this be trea- 
son, make the most of it. [1765]. 

I know not what course others may take, but, as for 
me, give me liberty, or give me death. [1775], 

Mutual politeness between the most intimate friends 
is essential to that harmony which should never be inter- 
rupted. 

A reserved haughtiness is a sure indication of a weak 
mind and an unfeeling heart. 

Never let your door be closed to the voice of suffering 
humanity. 

J. G. Holland.] 

Faith draws the poison from every grief, takes the 
sting from every loss, and quenches the fire of every 
pain ; and only faith can do it. 

Oh ! what is so dead as a perished delight ! 

Or a passion outlived ! or a scheme overthrown ! 
Save the bankrupt heart it has left in its flight, 

Still as quick as the eye, but as cold as a stone. 

We rise by things that are 'neath our feet ; 

By what we have mastered of good or gain ; 

By the pride deposed and the passion slain, 
And the vanquished ills that we hourly meet. 



128 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

J. G. Holland.] 

There is no tree that rears its crest, 
No fern or flower that cleaves the sod, 
No bird that sings above its nest, 
But tries to speak the name of God, 
And dies when it has done its best. 



Oliver Wendell Holmes.] 

It is faith in something and enthusiasm for something 
that makes a life worth looking at. 

The best of a book is not the thought which it contains, 
but the thought it suggests. 

The best part of our knowledge is that which teaches 
us where knowledge leaves off and ignorance begins. 

Men, like peaches and pears, grow sweet a little while 
before they begin to decay. 

A little nonsense, now and then, 
Is relished by the wisest men! 

Yes, child of suffering, thou mayst well be sure, 
He who ordained the Sabbath loves the poor. 

Alas for those that never sing, 
But die with all their music in them ! 



Thomas Hood.] 

There is even a happiness 
That makes the heart afraid. 

There's not a string attuned to mirth, 
But has its chord in Melancholy. 

He lies like a hedgehog rolled up the wrong way, 
Tormenting himself with his prickles. 

When he is forsaken, 
Withered and shaken, 
What can an old man do but die ? 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 129 

Thomas Hood.] 

We watched her breathing through the night, 
Her breathing soft and low. 

Our very hopes belied our fears, 

Our fears our hopes belied ; 
We thought her dying when she slept, 

And sleeping when she died. 

Of course a race-course isn't coarse, 

A fine is far from fine ; 
It is a saddening sight to see 

A noble pine tree pine. 

A kitchen maid is often made 

To burn her face and broil it ; 
A lady will do little else 

Than toil it at her toilet. 

One more unfortunate 
Weary of breath, 
Rashly importunate, 
Gone to her death. 

W. D. Howells.] 
Drolling everything is rather fatiguing. 

There's nothing like a good thorough failure for making 
people happy. 

A head-ache darkens the universe while it lasts. 

You cannot repeat great happiness. 

This passion for allying one's self to the great, by in- 
scribing one's name on the places hallowed by them, is 
certainly very odd; and it is, without doubt, the most 
impertinent and idiotic custom in the world. 

The unjust and the inefficient have always that con- 
sciousness of evil which will not let a man forgive his 
victim, or like him to be cheerful. 



130 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

HO WELLS.] 

The almighty dollar defeats itself, and, finally, du\s 
nothing that a man cares to have. 

Happiness has commonly a good appetite. 

Nothing is so tiresome as continual exchange of sym- 
pathy. 

Victor Hugo.] 

A bird sings, a child prattles, but it is the same hymn ; 
hymn indistinct, inarticulate, but full of profound mean- 
ing The most sublime psalm that can be heard on 

this earth is the lisping of a human soul from the lips of 
childhood. 

There is an hour of the day that may be called noise- 
less ; it is the serene hour of early evening. 

Inanimate objects sometimes appear endowed with 
a strange power of sight. A statue notices, a tower 
watches, the face of an edifice contemplates. 

Nature is pitiless ; she never withdraws her flowers, 
her music, her joyousness, and her sunlight from before 
human cruelty and suffering. 

Every body drags its shadow, and every mind its 
doubt. 

Twilight unlocks the hiding-place of stars ; 
They gleam and glow behind night's shadowy bars. 



Humboldt.] 

Mere communion with nature, mere contact with the 
free air, exercises a soothing yet strengthening influence 
on the wearied spirit, calms the storm of passion, and 
softens the heart when shaken by sorrow to its inmost 
depths. 

Man must will the good and the great ; the rest comes 
as decreed. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 131 

Humboldt.] 

No generation of men will evei have cause to boast of 
having comprehended the total aggregation of phenom- 
ena. 

We still must long and patiently collect observations. 

We are led by a happy illusion to believe that we re- 
ceive from the external world that with which we have 
ourselves invested it. 



Leigh Hunt.] 

There is May in books forever : 
May will part from Spencer never ; 
May's in Milton, May's in Prior, 
May's in Chaucer, Thomson, Byer. 

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase !) 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw within the moonlight in his room, 
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom, 
An angel writing in a book of gold. 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold ; 
And to the presence in the room he said, 
"What writest thou ? " The vision raised its head, 
And, with a look made of all sweet accord, 
Answered, "The names of those who love the 

Lord." 
" And is mine one ? " said Abou. " Nay, not so," 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low, 
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then, 
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night 
It came again, with a great wakening light, 
And showed the names whom love of God had 

blessed, — 
And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest. 



132 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

JeanIngelow.] 

What change has made the pastures sweet 
And reached the daisies at my feet, 
And cloud that wears a golden hem ? 
This lovely world, the hills, the sward — 
They all look fresh, as if our Lord 
But yesterday had finished them. 

We are much bound to them that do succeed ; 
But, in a more pathetic sense, are bound 
To such as fail. 

There was a morning when I longed for fame, 
There was a noontide when I passed it by, 
There is an evening when I think not shame 
Its substance and its being to deny. 

Youth ! youth ! how buoyant are thy hopes ! they turn, 
Like marigolds, toward the sunny side. 

O last love ! O first love ! 

My love with the true heart, 

To think I have come to this your home, 

And yet — we are apart! 

They are poor 
Who have lost nothing ; they are poorer far 
Who, losing, have forgotton ; they most poor 
Of all, who lose and wish they might forget. 

Our only greatness is that we aspire. 

Man dwells apart, though not alone, 
He walks among his peers unread ; 
The best of thoughts which he hath known, 
For lack of listeners are not said. 

Art tired ? 
There is a rest remaining. Hast thou sinned ? 
There is a Sacrifice. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 133 

Washington Irving.] 

Those disasters which break down the spirit of a man, 
and prostrate him in the dust, seem to call forth all the 
energies of the softer sex, and give such intrepidity and 
elevation to their character that, at times, it approaches 
to sublimity. 

Valor, in time of war, covers a multitude of sins. 

It is interesting to notice how some minds seem almost 
to create themselves, springing up under every disadvan- 
tage, and working their solitary but irresistible way 
through a thousand obstacles. 

How comforting it is to see a cheerful and contented 
old age ! 

Other men are known to posterity only through the 
medium of history, which is continually growing faint 
and obscure ; but the intercourse between the author and 
his fellowmen is ever new, active, and immediate. 

Slow and unapt men ever meet with impediments. 

Every countenance bright with smiles and glowing 
with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to 
others the rays of a supreme and evershining benevo- 
lence. 

It was the policy of the good old gentleman to make 
his children feel that home was the happiest place in the 
world ; and I value this delicious home-feeling as one of 
the choicest gifts a parent can bestow. 

The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which 

we refuse to be divorced Go to the grave of buried 

love and meditate! there settle the account with thy con- 
science for every past benefit unrequited, every past en- 
dearment unregarded, of that departed being who can 
never, never, never return to be soothed by thy contrition. 

Little minds are tamed and subdued by misfortune, 
but great minds rise above it. 



134 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Andrew Jackson.] 
The laws of the United States must be executed. 

In a country where offices are created solely for the 
benefit of the people, no one man has any more intrinsic 
right to official station than any other. 

Our Federal Union: it must be preserved. 

The time has never yet been when the patriotism and 
intelligence of the American people were not fully equal 
to the greatest exigency, and it never will be. 

Remember our watchword is Victory or Death. 

Every monopoly and all exclusive privileges are 
granted at the expense of the public, which ought to re- 
ceive a fair equivalent. 



Thomas Jefferson.] 

We hold these truths to be self-evident : that all men 
are created equal ; that they are endowed by their Creator 
with certain inalienable rights ; that among these are life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 

Error of opinion may be tolerated with safety where 
reason is left free to combat it. 

Though the will of the majority is in all cases to pre- 
vail, that will, to be rightful, must be reasonable. The 
minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must 
protect. 

It will rarely fall to the lot of imperfect man to retire 
from the presidency with the reputation and favor which 
bring him into it. 

That all should be satisfied with any one order of 
things is not to be expected. 

If angry, count ten before you speak ; if very angry, 
a hundred. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 135 

Dr. Jenner.] 

In the morning of my days, I sought the sequestered 
and lowly paths of life, — the valley and not the mount- 
ain, — and now, in the evening of my days, it is not meet 
for me to hold myself up as an object for fame and 
fortune. 



Dr. Johnson.] 

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to 
its scarcity. 

We that live to please, must please to live. 

I have found you an argument, I am not bound to find 
you an understanding. 

Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most 
like it least. 

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing 
to be remembered is, how much has been escaped. 

The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar suffer- 
ing with peculiar enjoyments. 

It is difficult to negotiate where neither will trust. 

The lance that is lifted at guilt and power, will some- 
times fall on innocence and gentleness. 

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt 
more than pity. 

Of all wild beasts, preserve me from a tyrant ; and of 
all tame, a flatterer. 

Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt. 

If power be in the hands of men, it will sometimes be 
abused. 

Live as men who are sometime to grow old, and to 
whom it will be the most dreadful of all evils to count 
their past years by follies. 



136 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Dr. Johnson.] 
No man was ever great by imitation. 

In solitude, if I escape the example of bad men, I want 
the counsel and conversation of the good. 

There are few doors through which liberality, joined 
with good humor, cannot find its way. 

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely 
make many happy, the folly or vice of one may often 
make many miserable. 

We do not always find visible happiness in proportion 
to visible virtue. 

Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal. 

How comfortless is the sorrow of him who feels at 
once the pangs of guilt and the vexation of calamity which 
guilt has brought upon him ! 

Goodness affords the only comfort which can be en- 
joyed without a partner. 

Wealth is nothing but as it is bestowed. 



Josephine.] 

Upon the government of ourselves, upon patience, 
mildness, and forbearance towards others, our happiness 
and success in life must mainly depend. 

Men are not slow to sharpen the memory of those who 
seem disposed to forget their origin, and the sole means 
of inducing others to pardon our good fortune is to enjoy 
it with moderation, sharing its gifts with those who have 
been less favored. 

I whisper to myself that the arm under which the 
whole earth is made to tremble, may well support my 
weakness. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 137 

Josephine.] 

After having known all the sweets of a love that is 
shared, and all the suffering of one that is so no longer; 
after having exhausted all the pleasures that supreme 
power can confer, and the happiness of beholding the 
man whom I loved enthusiastically admired, is there 
aught else save repose to be desired? 



Dr. Kane,] 

No one can know so well as an Arctic voyager the 
value of foresight. 

An Arctic night and an Arctic day [twenty-four hours] 
age a man more rapidly and harshly than a year any- 
where else in all this weary world. 

An iceberg is one of God's own buildings, preaching its 
lessons of humility to the miniature structures of man. 

Our arctic observatory is cold beyond any of its class. 
I have been on duty when the thermometer gave 20 deg, 
above zero at the instrument, 20 deg. below at two feet 
above the floor, and 43 deg. below at the floor itself: on 
my person, facing the little lobster-red fury of a stove, 
94 deg. above ; on my person, away from the stove, 10 deg. 
below zero. 

The number of those human beings whom calamity 
elevates is unfortunately small. 

It is hard work to hide one's own trials for the sake of 
others who have not so many. 

A trust based on experience, as well as on promises, 
buoyed me up at the worst of times. Call it fatalism, as 
you ignorantly may, there is that in the story of every 
eventful life which teaches the inefficiency of human 
means and the present control of a Supreme agency. 

A garden implies a purpose, either to remain or to re- 
turn ; he who makes it is looking to the future. 



138 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Keats.] 

The poetry of earth is never dead. 

A thing of beauty is a joy forever; 
Its loveliness increases ; it will never 
Pass into nothingness. 

Bards of passion and of mirth, 
Ye have left your souls on earth ! 
Have ye souls in heaven too, 

Double-lived in regions new ? 

Thus ye live on high, and then 
On the earth ye live again ; 
And the souls ye left behind you 
Teach us, here, the way to find you. 



Charles.Lamb.] 
I sleep with Cough and Cramp ; we lie three in a bed. 

Sentimentally I am disposed to harmony. But or- 
ganically I am incapable of a tune. 

Martin, if dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold ! 

The beggar is the only man in the universe who is not 
obliged to study appearances. 

What a place to be in is an old library ! It is a delight 
to merely look at books — in a state of quiet reverie to 
dream of the rich fruit which you will not pluck, of the 
sweet grapes which you will not taste. There, spread be- 
fore you, is a banquet fit for gods, and the consciousness 
that you could eat and be satisfied fills up your cup of 
pleasure to the brim. It is a feast at which the imagina- 
tion supplies ambrosia and nectar, and, for the time, 
coarser food is neither required nor desired. You walk 
in meadows of asphodel, and in the gardens of Hesperides, 
and have no wish to pluck a flower, or to gather the fruit. 
It is enough that they are there, and that the spirits who 
guard them are ready to supply you with both. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 139 

Lamb.] 
Where all is holiday there are no holidays. 

Friend of my bosom, thou more than a brother, 
Why wert thou not born in my father's dwelling, 
So might we talk of the old familiar faces. 



LlEBIG.] 

There can be only one straight line between two 
points ; but billions of curved lines may connect them. 

The mightiest stream, which sets in motion thousands 
of mills and machines, fails, if the streams and brooks 
run dry which supply it with water. 

The business of science is to seek for causes, and, like 
a light, to illuminate the surrounding darkness. Science 
confers power, not money ; and power is the source of 
riches and of poverty, — of riches when it produces, and 
of poverty when it destroys. 



Abraham Lincoln.] 

Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this 
mighty scourge of war may soon pass away. Yet, if God 
wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the 
bondman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil 
shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with 
the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the 
sword ; as was said three thousand years ago, so still it 
must be said that ' the judgments of the Lord are true and 
righteous altogether.' 

With malice towards none, with charity for all. 

Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that 
faith let us, to the end, dare to do our duty, as we under- 
stand it. 

I have a right to claim that if a man says he knows a 
thing, then he must show how he knows it. 



140 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Dr. Livingstone.] 

Sending the gospel to the heathen must include much 
more than a man going about with a Bible under his 
arm. 

God had but one Son, and he was a missionary. 

I can never cease to be most unfeignedly thankful that 
I was not born in a land of slaves. 

Nothing is so wearying to the spirit as talking to 
those who agree with every thing advanced. 

FiRE-arms render wars less frequent and less bloody. 
It is, indeed, exceedingly rare to hear of two tribes, 
having guns, going to war with each other. 

It is questionable if a descent to barbarous ways ever 
elevates a man in the eyes of a savage. 

I never allow my mind to dwell on the dark shades of 
men's characters; .... all around in this fair creation 
are scenes of beauty, and to turn from these to ponder on 
deeds of sin cannot promote a healthy state of the facul- 
ties. 



Longfellow.] 

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless 
when unbroken. 

And the night shall be filled with music, 

And the cares that infest the day 
Shall fold their tents like the Arabs, 

And as silently steal away. 

' Tis always morning somewhere, and above 
The awakening continents, from shore to shore, 
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore. 

There is no flock, however watched and tended, 

But one dead lamb is there ; 
There is no fireside, howsoe'er defended, 

But has one vacant chair. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 141 

Longfellow.] 

A torn jacket is soon mended, but hard words bruise 
the heart of the child. 

We look for the homes of our childhood — they are 
gone! for the friends of our childhood — they are gone! 
The loves and animosities of youth, where are they? 
Swept away like the camps that had been pitched in the 
sandy bed of the river. 

We may build more splendid habitations, 

Fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures ; 

But we can not 
Buy with gold the old associations. 

Into each life some rain must fall, 
Some days must be dark and dreary. 

Know how sublime a thing it is 
To suffer and be strong. 

The heights by great men reached and kept, 
Were not attained by sudden flight ; 

But they, while their companions slept, 
Were toiling upward in the night. 

Out of the bosom of the Air, 

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, 

Over the woodlands brown and bare, 

Over the harvest-fields forsaken, 

Silent, and soft, and slow 

Descends the snow. 

O thou child of many prayers ! 

Life hath quicksands, — life hath snares. 

There is a Reaper, whose name is Death, 

And, with his sickle keen, 
He reaps the bearded grain at a breath, 

And the flowers that grow between. 



142 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

James Russell Lowell.] 

Life is a leaf of white paper, 
Whereon each one of us may write 
His word or two, and then comes night. 
* * * * 

Greatly begin ! Though thou have time 
But for a line, be that sublime, — 
Not failure, but low aim, is crime. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to 

decide, 
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or 

evil side. 

***** 

Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the 
throne. 

Then to side with Truth is noble when we share her 
wretched crust, 

Ere her cause bring fame and profit, and ' tis prosper- 
ous to be just. 

One day, with life and heart, 
Is more than time enough to find a world. 

Laborin' man and laborin' woman 

Hav one glory an 1 one shame, 
Ev'y thin' thet's done inhuman 

Injers all on 'em the same. 

They are slaves who fear to speak 

For the fallen and the weak ; 

They are slaves who will not choose 

Hatred, scoffing, and abuse, 

Rather than in silence shrink 

From the truth they needs must think ; 

They are slaves who dare not be 

In the right with two or three. 












GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 143 

Martin Luther.] 

It is God's way, of beggars to make men of power, 
just as he made the world of nothing. 

A wicked tyrant is better than a wieked war. 

Good works do not make a Christian, but one must be 
a Christian to do good works. The tree bringeth forth 
the fruit, and not the fruit the tree. 

Marriage without children is the world without the 
sun. 

Christ is my brother, Gabriel my servant, Raphael 
my coachman, and all the angels my attendants at need, 
given unto me by my heavenly Father, to keep me in 
the path, that, unawares, I knock not my foot against a 
stone. 

The true Christian is like the sun, which pursues his 
noiseless track and everywhere leaves the effect of his 
beams in a blessing upon the world around him. 

A mighty fortress is our God, 

A bulwark never failing ; 
Our helper He amid the flood 

Of mortal ills prevailing. 



Macaulay.] 

Politeness has been well defined as benevolence in 
small things. 

The world generally gives its admiration, not to the 
man who does what nobody else ever attempts to do, but 
to the man who does best what multitudes do well. 

A reforming age is always fertile of impostors. 

The sun illuminates the hills while it is yet below the 
horizon ; and truth is discovered by the highest minds a 
little before it becomes manifest to the multitude. 



144 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

M AC AULA Y.] 

Propriety of thought and propriety of diction are 
commonly found together. 

There is no more hazardous enterprise than that of 
bearing the torch of truth into those dark and infected 
recesses in which no light has ever shone. 

Nobody loves discrepancy for the sake of discrepancy. 

A great writer is the friend and benefactor of his 
readers ; and they cannot but judge of him under the de- 
luding influence of friendship and gratitude. 

There is only one cure for the evils which newly 
acquired freedom produces, — and that cure is freedom! 

The upper current of society presents no certain cri- 
terion by which we can judge of the direction in which 
the under current flows. 

Hostile theories correct each other. 

If men are to wait for liberty till they become wise 
and good in slavery, they may, indeed, wait forever. 

No man is so great a favorite with the public as he 
who is at once an object of admiration, of respect, and of 
pity. 

A history in which every particular incident may be 
true, may on the whole be false. 

The hearts of men are their books ; events are their 
tutors ; great actions are their eloquence. 

The real security of Christianity is to be found in its 
benevolent morality, in its exquisite adaptation to the 
human heart, in the facility with which its scheme accom- 
modates itself to the capacity of every human intellect, 
in the consolation which it bears to the house of mourn- 
ing, in the light with which it brightens the great mys- 
tery of the grave. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 145 

Merle D'Aubigne.] 

A man of humble station [Luther] , holding in his hand 
the word of life, stood erect in the presence of earthly 
dignities, and they quailed before him. 

To achieve great results by imperceptible means is the 
law of divine dealings. 

Gibbon, seated on the ancient capitol and contemplating 
its noble ruins, acknowledged the intervention of a 
Superior destiny. 

The world was tottering on its old foundations when 
Christianity appeared. 

There is a principle of movement emanating from God 
' himself, in all the changes among nations. 



Harriet Martineau.] 

The health of a community is an almost unfailing in- 
dex of its morals. 

Local assemblies of citizens constitute the strength of 
free nations. Town meetings are to liberty what primary 
schools are to science. 

The stimulus of hope and confidence is necessary to 
impel men to do all that they can. 

Many, throughout all time, who have apparently been 
baffled in their aims, and labored in vain to work out 
their schemes, have, visibly or invisibly, attained the 
truest and highest success by an unwavering fidelity to 
the right and the true, and have enjoyed their natural 
recompense in the exaltation of their own being. 

Genius of a high quality finds or makes its own time 
and place. 

Nations must have a character aud live a life of their 
own; and, they cannot take their essential qualities from 
each other, nor modify them by each other. 



146 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Harriet Martineau.] 

The flame of Milton's genius has kindled hearts in a 
thousand households of Iceland. This, indeed, is fame. 

The great Jenner waged war against disease with 
greater success, as we believe, than any other physician 
who ever lived. He freely gave to the world his dis- 
covery of vaccination, and thus made himself one of the 
greatest of human benefactors. 

Napoleon remained to the last morally a child and a 
sufferer, — a baffled child and an unconscious sufferer 
from worse woes than his mortifications, his bondage, 
and his privations. 

There was good enough in Byron by starts, and by 
virtue of his genius, to suggest what he might have been, 
if reared under good influences. 

In Keats, the world lost a poet of infinite promise. 
Men are often least concious of their greatest losses ; and, 
in this, generations are like individuals. 

Shelley was a man of a noble and exquisite nature. 
He was persecuted for his opinions ; yet, unpopular as he 
was, and young when he died, he did more then any 
other man to direct and vivify the poetical aspirations of 
our time. 

Coleridge was the wonder of his time. If he had not 
been subject to one great deficiency, he would have been 
the miracle. 

Our interest in Hood is from the remarkable union, in 
his genius, of wit, sense, and pathos ; all so abounded 
together, and in the strictest union, as to give almost an 
impression of a fresh order of genius. He was always on 
the right side in matters of morals and of feeling, — full 
of faith in good, and sympathy in all that was generous 
and true. His satire was directed upon whatever was 
foul, false, and selfish. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 147 

Harriet Martixeau.] 

The world will forever be the better for the philosoph- 
ical researches of Sir Humphery Davy. Those who know 
nothing else about him have heard of the Davy-lamp, and 
know what a service he rendered by tracking death 
through the foul caverns of the earth, to bind and dis- 
arm him. This was only one of many immediate practi- 
cal services which he rendered to society. 

Charles Lamb, that gentle genius, heroic and genial, 
enjoying and suffering at once, — sportive and enduring, — 
noble and frail, — loving others as an angel might, and 
himself beloved as an infant and a sage in one 

Wherever English books are read, Bulwer's works 
are found, and men and women are disputing whether 
they are harmless or much to be feared. 

Rapid, brilliant, crowded with powers and beauties, 
Macaulay's "Essays" have roused and animated and 
gratified the minds of a multitude of readers. 

Of Scott, it is impossible, as it is needless, to speak. 
Every trait of his life is in all memories ; any attempt to 
estimate his share in modifying the mind of his time 
would be in vain. 

Among the novelists comes Charles Dickens, — the 
" Boz " who rose up in the midst of us like a jinnee with 
his magic glass among some Eastern people, showing 
forth what was doing in the regions of darkness, and in 
odd places where nobody ever thought of going to look. 
His sympathies are on the side of the suffering and the 
frail; and this makes him the idol of those who suffer 
from whatever cause. 

The poems of Alfred Tennyson have a life so vivid, a 
truth so lucid, and a melody so inexhaustible, as to mark 
him the poet that cannot die. 



. 



148 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Harriet Martineau.] 

Whatever place we assign him, and by whatever 
name we call him, Thomas Carlyle appears to be the 
man who has most essentially modified the mind of his 
time. Nothing like his mind was ever heard or dreamed 
of in our literature before; nothing like his mournful, 
grotesque, and bitterly earnest writing ever seen. 



Lowell Mason.] 

See the Northern light ! the Northern light ! 
Like the dawning day it shines, 
Shooting stream with stream combines, 
Brightly gleaming, through the vail of night. 

See the Northern light ! the Northern light ! 

Plainly telling He is great, 

Who did all its beams create, 

Never changing source of life and light. 



Mendelssohn.] 

Long live the public and the critics ; but I intend to 
live too. 

Time goes swiftly as an arrow, although the minutes 
linger. 

Exchange a few words, then drive asunder, and part 
for years or longer — such is the world ; moving onwards, 
meeting, coming near, and going far away. 



Owen Meredith.] 

No stream from its source 
Flows seaward, how lonely soever its course, 
But what some land gladdened. No star ever rose 
And set without influence somewhere. Who knows 
What earth needs from earth's lowest creature? 

No life 
Can be pure in its purpose and strong in its strife, 
And all life not be purer and stronger thereby. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 149 

Owen Meredith.] 
The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one, 
May hope to achieve it before life be done ; 
But he who seeks all things, wherever he goes, 
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows, — 
A harvest of barren regrets. 

Much must be borne which it is hard to bear ; 
Much given away which it were sweet to keep. 
God help us all ! who need, indeed, his care : 
And yet, I know the Shepherd loves his sheep. 

' Tis more brave 
To live, than to die. 

The world is filled with folly and sin, 
And love must cling where it can, I say ; 

For beauty is easy enough to win ; 
But one isn't loved every day. 

And I think, in the lives of most women and men, 
There's a moment when all would go smooth and even, 

If only the dead could find out when 
To come back and be forgiven. 

Are not great 
Men the models of nations ? 

I know not what rainbow may yet, from far hills, 
Lift the promise of hope, the cessation of ills. 

As pure as a pearl, 
And as perfect ; a noble and innocent girl. 

There are moments when silence, prolonged and 

unbroken, 
More expressive may be than all words ever spoken. 
It is when the heart has an instinct of what 
In the heart of another is passing. 



150 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Hugh Miller.] 

It was the necessity which made me a quarrier, that 
taught me to be a geologist. 

Great truths may be repeated until they become 
truisms, and we fail to note what they in reality convey. 

There is no necessary connection between a life of toil 
and a life of wretchedness. 

Upper and lower classes there must be, so long as the 
world lasts ; and there is only one way in which your 
jealousy of them can be well directed. Do not let them 
get ahead of you in intelligence. 

A nickname is a misfortune which almost never be- 
falls a truly great man. 

The eternity that hath passed is an ocean without a 
further shore, and a finite conception may in vain attempt 
to span it over. 

There is homage due to supereminent genius, which 
nature spontaneously pays when there are no low feelings 
of envy or jealousy to interfere with her operations. 

The footprint of the savage, traced in the sand, is suf- 
ficient to attest the presence of man to the atheist, who 
will not recognize God whose hand is impressed upon the 
entire universe. 



Joaquin Miller.] 

There never was a circus of much account that did 
not have its clown. 

Costly funerals are a calamity, a curse, a pitiful rem- 
nant of the darkest ages. 

THe belief in ghosts, even among stolid and thoughtful 
English gentlemen, is more general than is admitted. 

Successful men live in the age in which they are born. 
Great men live in advance of it. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 151 ' 

Joaquin Miller.] 
The old stage drivers of the brave old days ! 

The old stage drivers with their dash and trust ! 
Those old stage drivers, they have gone their ways, 
But their deeds live on, though their bones are dust. 

Is it worth while that we jostle a brother 
Bearing his load on the rough road of life ? 

Is it worth while that we jeer at each other 
In blackness of heart ? — that we war to the knife ? 
God pity us all in our pitiful strife. 

Death is dawn, 
The waking from a weary night 
Of fevers unto truth and light. 



Milton.] 

Truth is as impossible to be soiled by the outward 
touch as the sunbeam. 

Give me liberty to know, to think, to believe, and to 
utter fully, according to conscience, above all other 
liberties. 

He who reigns within himself, and rules passions, de- 
sires, and fears, is more than king. 

Whoever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and 
open encounter? 

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth 
Unseen, both when we sleep and when we wake. 

Peace hath her victories, 
No less renowned than war. 

Virtue could see to do what virtue would, 

By her own radiant light, though sun and moon 

Were in the flat sea sunk. 



152 . GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Milton.] 

He that hath light within his own clear breast 
May sit V the centre, and enjoy bright day ; 
But he that hides a dark soul and foul thoughts 
Benighted walks under the mid-day sun. 

Revenge, at first though sweet, 
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils. 

In either hand the hastening angel caught 
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate 
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast 
To the subjected plain ; then disappeared. 
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld 
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, 
Waved over by that flaming brand ; the gate 
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms. 
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them 

soon ; 
The world was all before them, where to choose 
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. 
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and 

slow, 
Through Eden took their solitary way. 



D. L. Moody.] 

It is hard work to convert a man in a dead church, 
away from where the Spirit is moving and working. 

A man who won't work is a most helpless case. 

Saying prayers is one thing, praying is another. 

Don't let Satan make you believe when you have any 
trouble that God does not love you. 

The moment Satan gets a man to leave out this doc- 
trine of blood, he has gained all he wants. 

I would rather go into the kingdom of heaven through 
the poor-house, than go down to hell in a golden chariot. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 153 

Thomas Moore.] 
Whether sunn'd in the tropics, or chill' d at the pole, 
If woman be there, there is happiness too. 

I never loved a tree or flower, 
But 'twas the first to fade away. 

When I remember all 

The friends so linked together 
I 've seen around me fall, 
Like leaves in wintry weather, 

I feel like one 

Who treads alone 
Some banquet-hall deserted, 

Whose lights are fled, 

Whose garlands dead, 
And all but he departed. 

And the heart that is soonest awake to the flowers, 
Is always the first to be touched by the thorns. 

' Tis the last rose of summer, 
Left blooming alone. 

Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy, 

Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot 
destroy ; 

Which come, in the night- time of sorrow and 
care, 

And bring back the features which joy used to 
wear. 

Long, long be my heart with such memories filled ! 

Like the vase in which roses have once been dis- 
tilled— 

You may break, you may ruin the vase, if you 
will, 

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still. 



154 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

John Lothrop Motley.] 

When an unknown writer asks the attention of the 
public upon an important theme, he is not only author- 
ized, but required, to show that by industry and earnest- 
ness he has entitled himself to a hearing. 

A true great thought never dies. 

Liberty, often crushed, rises again and again from her 
native earth with redoubled energy. 

Names illustrious by genius and virtue are History's 
most precious treasures. 

The character of a great man must always be closely 
scanned and scrutinized. 

Human progress is over a vast field, and it is only at 
considerable intervals that a retrospective view enables 
us to discern whether the movement has been slow or 
rapid, onward or retrograde. 

From the amusements of a people may be gathered 
much that is necessary for a proper estimation of its 
character. 

The spectacle of a brave nation, inspired by the soul of 
one great man and rising against an overwhelming 
despotism, will always speak to the heart, from genera- 
tion to generation. 

Durability is not the test of merit in human institu- 
tions. 

So long as the axe is not laid at the foot of the tree, 
which bears the poison but golden fruit, the moderate 

man applauds the blows The immoderate man 

stands firm in the storm, demanding argument instead of 
illogical thunder; shows the hangman and the people 
too, outside the Elster gate at Wittenberg, that papal 
bulls will blaze as merrily as heretic scrolls. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 155 

Mozart.] 
Italy is a land of sleep. 

Speak of the wolf, and you see his ears. 

Work is my chief pleasure. 



Napoleon.] 

Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary 
of fools. 

Posterity will talk of Washington with reverence as 
the founder of a great empire, when my name shall be 
lost in the vortex of revolution. 

When firmness is sufficient, rashness is unnecessary. 

We have yet many forced marches to make; other 
enemies to subdue; more laurels to gather; and more 
injuries to avenge ! 

My destiny is more powerful than my will ; my dearest 
affections must yield to the interests of France. 



Newton.] 

This beautiful system of sun, planets, and comets could 
have its origin in no other way than the purpose and 
command of an intelligent and powerful Being. 

We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sub- 
lime philosophy. I find more marks of authenticity in 
the Bible than in any profane history whatever. 

I do not know what I may appear to the world, but to 
myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the 
sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a 
smoother pebble, or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst 
the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me. 



156 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

James Parton.] 

There is no revolution that does not sweep away much 
that is good. 

Sudden wealth is itself sufficient to spoil any but the 
best men, — those who can instantly set it at work for the 
general good, and continue to earn an honest livelihood 
by faithful labor. 

As it is only the wise who learn, so it is only the good 
who improve. 

No work on this earth consumes vitality so fast as care- 
fully executed composition, and, consequently, one of the 
main conditions of a man's writing his best is that he 
should write little and rest often. 

There will never be a career for a talent undeveloped 
or half developed. 

Who shall explain to us why Charles Dickens can 
write about a three-legged stool in such a manner that 
the whole civilized world reads with pleasure; while 
another man of a hundred times his knowledge, and five 
times his quantity of mind, cannot write on any subject 
so as to interest anybody ? 



AdelinaPatti.] 

I would not for the world violate a single one of the 
laws of health. 



John Howard Payne.] 

Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, 
Be it ever so humble there's no place like home ! 
A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, 
Which, seek through the world, is ne'er met with 
elsewhere. 
Home ! home ! sweet, sweet home ! 
There's no place like home ! 






GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 157 

William Penn. 

Knowledge is the treasure, but judgment is the treas- 
urer of the wise man. 

He who is taught to live upon little, owes more to his 
father's wisdom than he that has a great deal left him 
does to his father's care. 

Poor mechanics are wont to be God's great embassa- 
dors to mankind. 

He that does good for good's sake seeks neither praise 
nor reward, though sure of both at last. 

Believe nothing against another but on good author- 
ity; nor report what may hurt another, unless it be a 
greater hurt to another to conceal it. 

Less judgment than wit is more sail than ballast. Yet 
it must be confessed that wit gives an edge to sense, and 
recommends it extremely. 

No pain, no palm ; no thorns, no throne ; no gall, no 
glory; no cross, no crown. 

Be resolved but not sour, grave but not formal, bold 
but not rash, humble but not servile, patient but not 
insensible, constant but not light. Rather be sweet- 
tempered than familiar, familiar rather than intimate, 
and intimate with very few and upon good grounds. 



Wendell Phillips.] 

What is defeat ? Nothing but education ; nothing but 
the first step to something better. 

The best education in the world is that got by strug- 
gling to get a living. 

The power to use new truths in science, new ideas in 
morals or art, obliterates rank, and makes the lowest 
man useful or necessary to the state. 



158 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Wendell Phillips.] 

The glory of men is often, not what they actually pro- 
duce, so much as what they enable others to do. My 
Lord Bacon, as he takes his proud march down the 
centuries, may lay one hand on the telegraph and the 
other on the steamboat, and say, " These are mine, for I 
taught you to invent." 

We may see our future in the glass of our past history. 

You may build your Capitol of granite, and pile it high 
as the Rocky Mountains ; if it is founded or mixed up 
with iniquity, the pulse of a girl will in time beat it down. 

Unseen chains are sometimes stronger than iron, and 
heavier than those of gold. 

The advancing tide you cannot mark. The gem forms 
unseen. The granite increases and crumbles, and you 
can hardly mark either process. The change in a nation's 
opinion is the same. 

Stand on the pedestal of your own independence. 

The weeds poured forth in nature's lavish luxuriance, 
give them time, and their tiny roots shall rend asunder 
the foundations of the palaces, and crumble the Pyramids 
to the earth. 

To be as good as our fathers, we must be better. Imi- 
tation is not discipleship. When some one sent a cracked 
plate to China to have a set made, every piece in the 
new set had a crack in it. 

Revolutions are not made ; they come. A revolution 
is as natural a growth as an oak. It comes out of the 
past. Its foundations are laid far back. The child feels ; 
he grows into a man, and thinks; another, perhaps, 
speaks, and the world acts out the thought. 

The highest act which the human being can do, that is 
the act which God designed him to do. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 159 

Edgar Allan Poe.] 

My whole nature utterly revolts at the idea that there 
is anything in the universe superior to myself. 

Nothing cheers or comforts me ; my life seems wasted. 

Hear the tolling of the bells, — 
Iron bells ! 
What a world of solemn thought their monody 
compels ! 
In the silence of the night, 
How we shiver with affright 
.At the melancholy menace of their tone ! 
For every sound that floats 
From the rust within their throats 
Is a groan. 

Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my 
chamber door, — 
Perched, and sat, and nothing more. 

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy 
form from off my door ! 
Quoth the Raven, " Nevermore." 



Pope.] 

Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall 
never be disappointed. 

To be angry is to revenge the fault of others upon our- 
selves. 

A man's self may be the worst fellow to converse with 
in the world. 

Heaven from all creatures hides the book of Fate, 
All but the page prescribed, their present state : 
From brutes what men, from men what spirits know, 
Or who could suffer being here below ? 



160 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Pope.] 

Every man has just as much vanity as he wants under- 
standing. 

A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in 
the wrong, which is but saying in other words that he is 
wiser to-day than he was yesterday. 

He who tells a lie is not sensible how great a task he 
undertakes : for he must be forced to invent twenty more 
to maintain that one. 

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground ; 
Another race the following spring supplies ; 
They fall successive, and successive rise. 

To err is human ; to forgive, divine. 

Worth makes the man, and want of it the fellow. 

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. 

Just as the twig is bent, the tree's inclined. 

Who builds a church to God, and not to fame, 
Will never mark the marble with his name. 

Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night : 
God said, * Let Newton be ! ' and all was light. 

Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, 
Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. 

Be thou the first true merit to befriend ; 
His praise is lost who waits till all commend. 

' Tis strange the miser should his cares employ 
To gain those riches he can ne'er enjoy ; 
Is it less strange the prodigal should waste 
His wealth to purchase what he ne'er can taste ? 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 161 

William IT. Prescott.] 
It is easier to contend with man than with nature. 

True jests are apt to stick. 

The indulgence of fierce, unbridled passions is sure to 
recoil sooner or later, even in this life, on the heads of 
the guilty. 

A nation will endure any outrage sooner than that on 
its religion. 

Respect for forms is an essential element of freedom. 

The most gigantic monuments of architecture which 
the world has witnessed would never have been reared 
by the hands of freemen. 

The Inquisition did more to stay the march of improve- 
ment than any other scheme ever devised by human 
cunning. 

It was not in the nature of a Pizarro to forgive an 
injury, or the man whom he had injured. 

Pizarro was eminently perfidious. Yet nothing is 
more opposed to sound policy. One act of perfidy, fully 
established, becomes the ruin of its author. The man 
who relinquishes confidence in his good faith gives up 
the best basis for future operations. 

It is impossible to license crime by halves, — to author- 
ize injustice to all and hope to regulate the measure of it. 

The processes of science are necessarily slow, but they 
are sure. There is no retrograde movement in her do- 
main. Arts may facie, the Muse become dumb, a moral 
lethargy may lock up the faculties of a nation, the nation 
itself may pass away and leave only the memory of its 
existence, but the stores of science it has garnered up 
will endure forever. 



162 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Sir Walter Raleigh.] 
The gain of lying is nothing else but not to be trusted 

of any, nor to be believed when we say the truth. 

♦ 

Thou mayest be sure that he that will in private tell 
thee of thy faults is thy friend, for he adventures thy dis- 
like, and doth hazard thy hatred. 

It would be an unspeakable advantage, both to the 
public and private, if men would consider that great 
truth, that no man is wise or safe but he that is honest. 

I do not understand those to be poor and in want, 
which are vagabonds and beggars, but those that labor 
to live, such as are old and cannot travel, such poor 
widows and fatherless children as are ordered to be re- 
lieved, and the poor tenants that travail to pay their rents 
and are driven to poverty by mischance, and not by riot 
or careless expenses ; on such have thou compassion, and 
God will bless thee for it. 

O eloquent, just and mightie Death ! whom none 
could advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, 
thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, 
thou only hast cast out of the world and despised : thou 
hast drawne together all the farre stretched greatnesse, 
all the pride, crueltie and ambition of man, and covered 
it all over with these two narrow words, Hicjacet! 

Passions are likened best to floods and streams : 
The shallow murmur, but the deep are dumb. 



Charles Reade.] 
There is a dignity in silent, unobtrusive sorrow. 

People should be able to take jests, or to answer them 
in kind, — not to take them to heart. 

When everybody sees how a story will end, the story 
is ended. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 163 

Charles Beads.] 
Time seems to wear out every thing, even bad luck. 

All that we can say. has been said ; can do, has been 
done; can suffer, has been suffered. 

The judgment is sometimes ashamed to contradict the 
heart with cold reasons. 

A beautiful face fires our imagination, and we see a 
higher virtue and intelligence in it than we can detect in 
its owner's head or heart when we descend to calm in- 
spection. 

' Few things in this world keep their high flavor. 

How" sweet is pleasure after pain ! 

Only pure conjugal love seems never old, nor stale, 
but ever sweet : if it declines in passion, it gains in af- 
fection ; it multiplieth joy, it divideth sorrow, and here in 
this sorry world, is the thing likest Heaven. 

Not a day passes over the earth but men and women 
of no note do great deeds, speak great words, and suffer 
noble sorrows. Of these obscure heroes, philosophers, 
and martyrs, the greater part will never be known till 
that hour when many that were great shall be small and 
the small great. 

God is just, and deals the sources of content with a 
more equal hand than appears on the surface of things. 

Trouble comes to all of us at one time or other; and 
I think they are the happiest that have their trouble in 
the morning of their days. 

I do not wish you a day without a cloud, for you are 
human, and I, though a writer, am not all humbug ; but 
I wish you a bright afternoon and a tranquil evening, 
and, above all, a clear sky when the sun goes down. 



164 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 



Sir Joshua Reynolds.] 

A room hung with pictures is a room hung with 
thoughts. 

Excellence is never granted to man but as the reward 
of labor. 

Words should be employed as the means, not as the 
end: language is the instrument, conviction is the work. 

If you have great talents, industry will improve them ; 
if moderate abilities, industry will supply their deficiency. 
Nothing is denied to well-directed labor ; nothing is ever 
to be attained without it. 

The mind is but a barren soil ; a soil which is soon ex- 
hausted, and will produce no crop, or only one, unless it 
be continually fertilized and enriched with foreign matter. 

Reformation is a work of time. A national taste, 
however wrong it may be, cannot be totally changed at 
once ; we must yield a little to the prepossession which 
has taken hold on the mind, and we may then bring peo- 
ple to adopt what would offend them, if endeavored to be 
introduced by violence. 






JohnRuskin.] 

I believe the first test of a truly great man is his hu- 
mility. 

The love of nature, wherever it has existed, has been 
a faithful and sacred element of human feeling. 

Better the modest work that tells a story or records a 
fact, than the richest without meaning. 

It is excellent discipline for an author to feel that he 
must say all he has to say in the fewest possible words, 
or his reader is sure to skip them; and in the plainest 
possible words, or his reader will certainly misunder- 
stand them. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 165 

RUSKIN.] 

Nothing is ever done beautifully which is done in 
rivalship, nor nobly which is done in pride. 

God has lent us the earth for our life. 

No man has ever lived a right life who has not been 
chastened by a woman's love, strengthened by her cour- 
age, and guarded by her discretion. 

An infinitude of tenderness is the chief gift and inheri- 
tance of all truly great men. 

However mean or inconsiderable the act, there is 
something in the well doing of it which has fellowship 
with the noblest forms of manly virtue. 

Our God is a household God as well as a heavenly one. 

It is only by labor that thought can be made healthy, 
and only by thought that labor can be made happy. 

Lichens and mosses — how of these ? Meek creatures ! 
the first mercy of the earth, vailing with hushed softness 
its dintless rocks ; creatures full of pity, covering with 
strange and tender honor the scarred disgrace of ruin — 
laying quiet finger on the trembling stones to teach them 
rest ; . . . . yet all subdued and pensive, and framed for 
simplest, sweetest offices of grace. They will not be 
gathered, like the flowers for chaplet or love-token, but 
of these the wild bird will make its nest, and the wearied 
child his pillow. 

And as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift 
to us. When all other service is vain, from plant and 
tree, the soft mosses and gray lichen will take up their 
watch by the head-stone. The woods, the blossoms, the 
gift-bearing grasses, have done their parts for a time, but 
these do service forever. Trees for the builder's yard, 
flowers for the bride's chamber, corn for the granary, 
moss for the grave. 



166 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 



St. Paul.] 
Lord, what wilt thou have me to do ? 

Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. 

If God be for us, who can be against us? 
Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. 



John G. Saxe.] 

I do not tremble when I meet 

The stoutest of my foes, 

But Heaven defend me from the friend 

Who comes — but never goes. 

" The proper study of mankind is man ; " 
The most perplexing one, no doubt, is woman. 

Old Care has a mortgage on every estate, 

And that's what you pay for the wealth that you get. 

Is learning your ambition ? 

There is no royal road ; 
Alike the peer and peasant 

Must climb to her abode : 
Who feels the thirst of knowledge, 

In Helicon may slake it, 
If he has still the Roman will 

" To find a way, or make it." 

Depend upon it, my snobbish friend, 
Your family thread you can't ascend, 
Without good reason to apprehend 
You may find it waxed, at the other end, 

By some plebeian vocation ! 
Or, worse than that, your boasted line 
May end in a loop of stronger twine, 

That plagued some worthy relation ! 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 167 

Saxe.] 

In battle or business, whatever the game, 

In law or in love, it is ever the same ; 

In the struggle for power, or the scramble for pelf, 

Let this be your motto — " Bely on yourself! " 

For, whether the prize be a ribbon or throne, 

The victor is he who can " go it alone ! " 

I'm growing fonder of my staff, 

I'm growing dimmer in the eyes, 
I'm growing fainter in my laugh, 

I'm growing deeper in my sighs, 
I'm growing careless of my dress, 

I'm growing frugal of my gold, 
I'm growing wise, I'm growing, — yes, — 
I'm growing old. 



Schiller.] 

Love can sun the Realms of Light. 

Of all possessions of this life, fame is the noblest ; when 
the body has sunk into dust, the great name still lives. 

In the days of yore nothing Avas holy but the beautiful. 

It is only through the morning gate of the beautiful 
that you can penetrate into the realm of knowledge. 
That which we feel here as beauty, we shall know one 
day as truth. 

It is a gentle and affectionate thought, 

That in immeasurable heights above us, 

At our first birth the wreath of love was woven 

With sparkling stars for flowers. 

Joy is the mainspring in the whole 
Of endless Nature's calm rotation. 
Joy moves the dazzling wheels that roll 
In the great Time-piece of Creation. 



168 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Walter Scott.] 

When a man has not a good reason for doing a thing, 
he has one good reason for letting it alone. 

Greatness of any kind has no greater foe than a habit 
of drinking. 

Guilt, though it may attain temporal splendor, can 
never confer real happiness. 

What can they see in the longest kingly line in Europe, 
save that it runs back to a successful soldier ? 

Jock, when ye hae naething else to do, ye may be aye 
sticking in a tree ; it will be growing, Jock, when ye're 
sleeping. 

There never did, and never will, exist anything per- 
manently noble and excellent in character which was a 
stranger to the exercise of resolute self-denial. 

The poorest man's home has a glory, where there are 
true hands, a divine heart, and an honest fame. 

The very art of life, so far as I have been able to ob- 
serve, consists in fortitude and perseverance. 

Some feelings are to mortals given, 
With less of earth in them than heaven. 

0, what a tangled web we weave, 
When first we practice to deceive ! 

When musing on companions gone, 
We doubly feel ourselves alone. 

The rose is fairest when 't is budding new, 
And hope is brightest when it dawns from fears ; 

The rose is sweetest washed with morning dew, 
And love is loveliest when embalmed in tears. 

What specter can the charnel send, 
So dreadful as an injured friend? 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 169 

Scott.] 

Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 

"This is my own, my native land ! " 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned, 
As home his footsteps he hath turned 

From wandering on a foreign strand ? 
If such there breathe, go, mark him well ; 
For him no Minstrel raptures swell ; 
High though his titles, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim ; 
Despite those titles, power, and pelf, 
The wretch concenter' d all in self, 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And, doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung. 



Shakspeare.] 

Brevity is the soul of wit, and tediousness the limbs 
and outward flourishes. 

Who can speak broader than he who has no house to 
put his head in? Such may rail against great buildings. 

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there where it most 
promises ; and oft it hits where hope is coldest, and de- 
spair most sits. 

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, 
Grapple them to thy soul with hooks of steel. 

I have no other but a woman's reason ; 
I think him so, because I think him so. 

The ripest fruit first falls. 

Forever and a day. 

I never knew so young a body with so old a head. 



170 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Shakspeare.] 

An honest man is able to speak for himself, when a 
knave is not. 

There is a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew 
them as we will. 

It is one thing to be tempted, another thing to fall. 

O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name 
to be known by, let us call thee devil ! 

A giving hand, though foul, shall have fair praise. 

Suspicion always haunts the guilty mind ; 
The thief doth fear each bush an officer. 

Cowards die many times before their death, 
The valiant never taste of death but once. 

He is not great who is not greatly good. 

I dare do all that may become a man ; 
Who dares do more is none. 

Our doubts are traitors, 
And make us lose the good we oft might win, 
By fearing to attempt. 

My library 
Was dukedom large enough. 

I'll not budge an inch. 

My cake is dough. 

Some are born great, some achieve greatness, 
And some have greatness thrust upon them. 

We must take the current when it serves, 
Or lose our ventures. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 171 

Shelley.] 

Spirit of nature ! all-sufficing power, 
Necessity ! thou mother of the world ! 

I pant for the music which is divine ; 

My soul in its thirst is a dying flower. 
Pour forth the sounds like enchanted wine ; 

Loosen the notes in a silver shower ! 

Most wretched men 
Are cradled into poetry by wrong ; 
They learn in suffering what they teach in song. 

How wonderful is Death ! 
Death and his brother Sleep. 



Ltdia Huntley Sigourney.] 

To reveal its complacence by gifts, is one of the native 
dialects of love. 

We speak of educating our children. Do we know that 
our children also educate us ? 

It is one proof of a good education, and of true refine- 
ment of feeling, to respect antiquity. 

True politeness requires humility, good sense, and be- 
nevolence. To think more highly of ourselves than we 
ought to think, destroys its quickening principle. 

There is a certain blending of dignity with sweetness, 
not often exhibited, but always irresistible. Without 
creating reserve, or chilling friendship, it repels every 
improper freedom, and couples respect with love. 

The strength of a nation, especially of a republican na- 
tion, is in the intelligent and well-ordered homes of its 
people. 

A disposition to dwell on the bright side of character, 
is like gold to its possessor. 



172 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

William Gilmore Simms.] 

The temperate are the most luxurious. By abstaining 
from most things, it is surprising how many things we 
enjoy. 

Tears are the natural penalties of pleasure ; it is a law 
that we should pay for all that we enjoy. 

Our distinctions do not lie in the places which we occu- 
py, but in the grace and dignity with which we fill them. 

Most men remember obligations, but not often to be 
grateful for them. The proud are made sour by the 
remembrance, and the vain silent. 

Our true acquisitions lie only in our charities. We 
gain only as we give. There is no beggar so destitute as 
he who can afford nothing to his neighbor. 

A people never fairly begins to prosper till necessity 
is treading on its heels. . . . Population is power, but it 
must be a population that, in growing, is made daily ap- 
prehensive of the morrow. 

A gracious couch, — the root of an old oak 
Whose branches yield it moss and canopy, — 

* * * 

There, with eye sometimes shut, but upward bent, 
Sweetly I muse through many a quiet hour, 

While every sense on earnest mission sent, 
Returns, thought-laden, back with bloom and 
flower. 

* * * 
Sometimes a brighter cloud than all the rest 

Hangs o'er the archway opening through the 
trees, 
Breaking the spell that, like a slumber, pressed 

On my worn spirit its sweet luxuries, — 
And with awakened vision upward bent, 
I watch the firmament. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 173 

Bishop Simpson.] 

While a man's heart is sound, and he is able to do 
good, he is to be classed among young men. 

It is the thought of eternity alone that can sustain our 
hearts, and make our life joyful to us here. 

Wherever God's word is circulated, it stirs the hearts 
of the people and improves public morals. 

If we have risen a step higher than some other, let us 
reach down for our brother's hand, and help him to stand 
beside us. 

If you walk with Christ, keep out of all evil company, 
of all evil associations ; keep from all evil places, from 
every place where you cannot go with the spirit of Christ, 
and that, if upon earth, you might not expect to meet 
him there. If you go out of the territory where he would 
go, you must not expect to find him. 



Southey.] 

Call not that man wretched who, whatever ills he 
suffers, has a child to love. 

My ways are as broad as the king's high-road, and my 
means lie in an inkstand. 

There is a magic in the little word home, — it is a 
mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never 
known beyond its hallowed limits. 

There is a certain stage of depravity in which men 
derive an unnatural satisfaction from the notoriety of 
their wickedness. 

I much doubt whether, apart from the internal emotion 
of piety, the external expression of it is graceful in any 
one, save only in a little child in his night-shirt, on his 
knees saying his evening prayer. 



174 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

SOUTHEY.] 

If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words 
as with sunbeams, — the more they are condensed, the 
deeper they burn. 

They sin who tell us Love can die : 
With Life all other passions fly, 
All others are but vanity. 

How beautiful is night ! 
A dewy freshness fills the silent air ; 
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain, 
Breaks the serene of heaven : 
In full-orbed glory, yonder moon divine 
Rolls through the dark blue depths. 

Beneath her steady ray 

The desert circle spreads, 
Like the round ocean, girdled with the sky. 

How beautiful is night ! 



Spurgeon.] 

Ambition is like the sea which swallows all the rivers, 
and is none the fuller. 

How ridiculous does man appear when he attempts to 
argue with God ! 

There must be no liberty to pull up the buoys and de- 
stroy the light-houses of the Christian church. 

Heresies in the Christian church come never from the 
city missionary, never from the faithful pastor, never 
from the intense evangelist, but always from the gentle- 
men at ease who take no actual part in our holy war. 

We ought not to court publicity for our virtue, or 
notoriety for our zeal, but at the same time it is a sin to 
be always seeking to hide that which God has bestowed 
upon us for the good of others. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 175 

H. M, Stanley.] 

Invisible moral power has gained as many victories 
as gross material power on this globe of ours. 

For thriftlessness, the world has naught but contempt ; 
for natural debility, only pity; for vice, condemnation; 
for failures, oblivion. 

If a man submit once, he must be prepared to submit 
again. 

With an ardor and a fidelity unexpected, and an un- 
measured confidence, my African companions had fol- 
lowed me to the very death. True negro nature had often 
asserted itself, but it was, after all, but human nature. 
They had never boasted that they were heroes, but they 
exhibited truly heroic stuff while coping with untrodden 
and apparently endless wilds of broad Africa. 

They were sweet and sad moments, those of parting, — 
what a noble fidelity these untutored souls had exhibited. 



George Stephenson.] 

I put up with every rebuff, determined not to be put 
down. 

Do as I have done, — persevere. 



R. s. Storrs.] 

Philosophy does not sing. Unbelief does not sing. It 
is only the faith which accepts with love the Lord who 
comes to us in Christianity, that exults in the ministry of 
music, caroling like a bird in aspiring song. 

Woman represents, and largely is, the conscience and 
the heart of Christendom. More than man, she beat 
down slavery in this country. More then man, she is to 
mould the future of the world. 

This world is practically another world in moral life 
since Jesus of Xazareth taught in it. 



176 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Storrs.] 

It is not strange, or passing belief, that the hand which 
holds the universe together should wipe the tears from 
human eyes. 

Were you building a monument to remain for the 
ages, how majestic and substantial would be its con- 
struction ! How much more august and solemn is life ! 

Christianity has made the stranger a friend, and 
opened the gates of the nation's hospitalities. 

One must have eyes to see the sunshine. A moral 
idiocy can only transfer its own image to the heavens. 

All moral truth requires, as a condition of its accept- 
ance, a moral state in a measure at least sympathetic 
with itself. 

Assaults upon Christianity no more harm it in the end 
than errors in geometry confuse the spheres. 

Faith in the unseen Lord is the most effective ethical, 
social, and political force ever known on the earth. 

The public consciousness of religious obligation is fre- 
quently more pronounced and effective, as well as more 
enduring, than is the individual conviction of it. 

Men are required by this religion to rival God ; through 
perfect love to be as perfect as Himself; as the single 
drop, in its crystal sphericity, is as perfect as oceans ; as 
the single sun-ray, slanting through the crevice, is as 
perfect in its intrinsic splendor as measureless floods of 
the solar effulgence. 

There are many languages into which it would be 
evidently impossible to translate either Homer or Shaks- 
peare, Dante or Goethe. But no tribe of men has yet been 
found whose dialect could not be renewed and enriched, 
refined and expanded, so as at length to take into itself 
these surprising Christian Scriptures. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 177 

Harriet Beecher Stowe.] 

Shakspeare is a perfect Alpine valley, — he is full of 
flowers ; they spring and blossom and wave in every cleft 
of his mind. 

The longer I live, the more faith I have in grand- 
mothers and grandmotherly logic. 

He who has the good luck to have a quiet, impertur- 
bable nature, has also the further good luck of being- 
praised for it as for a Christian virtue, while he who has 
the ill fortune to be born with irritable nerves, has the 
further ill fortune of being always considered a sinner on 
account of it. 

Even the smallest clink of light is welcome in a prison, 
if it speak of a possible door which courage and zeal may 
open. 

There are three writers which every one who wants 
to know how to use the English language effectively 
should study; and these are Shakspeare, Bunyan, and 
De Foe. 

A peasant on his own ground is generally better in- 
formed than a philosopher from elsewhere. 

What a curious kind of thing shadow is, — that invisi- 
ble veil, falling so evenly and so lightly over all things, 
bringing with it such thoughts of calmness, of coolness, 
and of rest. 

Every great movement seems an impossibility at first. 
There is no end to the number of things declared and 
proved impossible which have been done already. 

O, what an untold world there is in one human heart ! 

It is easier to die for a good cause, in some hour of 
high enthusiasm, when all that is noblest in us can be 
roused to one great venture, than to live for it amid 
wearing years of discouragement and hope delayed. 



17S GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Sweden borg.] 
Man is born an animal, but he becomes a man. 

Every affection has its own enjoyment, and enjoy- 
ments tie minds together. 

As large a demand is made on our faith by nature as 
can be made by miracles. 

He alone is a man who is interiorly what he wishes to 
seem to others. 

No one becomes an angel, or comes into heaven, unless 
he carries with him from the world what is angelic. 



Dean Swift.] 

Censure is the tax that a man pays to the public for 
being eminent. 

I never knew a man who could not bear the mis- 
fortunes of another perfectly like a Christian. " 

If a proud man makes me keep my distance, the com- 
fort is that he keeps his at the same time. 

Men are contented to be laughed at for their wit, but 
not for their folly. 

Climbing is performed in the same posture with creep- 
ing. 

There are very few that will own themselves in a 
mistake, though all the world see them to be in down- 
right nonsense. 

One of the best rules in conversation is, never to say 
a thing which any of the company can reasonably wish 
we had rather left unsaid. 

Nothing is so great an instance of ill-manners as flat- 
tery. If you flatter all the company, you please none ; if 
you flatter only one or two, you affront the rest. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 179 

Talmage.] » 

The bank of England is a weak institution compared 
with the bank that any Christian man can draw upon. 

Living is a tremendous affair, and alas ! for the man 
who makes recreation a depletion instead of an augmen- 
tation. 

Remember that on the door of every skating rink and 
every place of amusement, honest or dishonest, on every 
cool night a whole group of pneumonias stand ready to 
escort you to the sepulcher. 

There is no such thing as being "on the fence" in 
religion. 



Bayard Taylor.] 

Opportunity is rare, and a wise man will never let it 
go by him. 

Nothing can be had for nothing; whatever a man 
achieves, he must pay for; and no favor of fortune can 
absolve him from his duty. 

Unless a man believe in something far higher than 
himself; something infinitely purer and grander than he 
can ever become ; unless he has an instinct of an order 
beyond his dreams, of laws beyond his comprehension, 
of beauty and goodness and justness beside which his 
own ideals are dark, he will fail in every loftier form of 
ambition, and ought to fail. 

Fame won at home is of all fame the best. 

The amber midnight smiles in dreams of dawn. 

He teaches best, 
Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast, 
And knows their strength or weakness through 
his own. 



180 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 



Tennyson.] 
In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's 

breast ; 
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another 

crest ; 
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished 

dove; 
In the spring the young man's fancy lightly turns to 

thoughts of love. 

Howe'er it be, it seems to me, 

1 Tis only noble to be good. 
Kind hearts are more than coronets, 

And simple faith than Norman blood. 

I hold it true, whate'er befall, 

I feel it when I sorrow most, — 

' Tis better to have loved and lost 
Than never to have loved at all. 

Never morning wore 
To evening, but some heart did break. 

For men may come and men may go, 
But I go on forever. 

O good gray head which all men know. 

Sweet is every sound, 
Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet ; 
Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn, 
The moan of doves in immemorial elms, 
And murmuring of innumerable bees. 

This is truth the poet sings, 
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering 
happier things. 

But O, for the touch of a vanished hand, 
And the sound of a voice that is still! 






GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 181 

Thackeray.] 
If fun is good, truth is better, and love best of all. 

There is no good ( unless your taste is that way ) in 
living in a society where you are nearly the equal of 

everybody else The true pleasure of life is to live 

with your inferiors. Be the cock of your village, the 
queen of your coterie. 

What a dignity it gives an old lady, that balance at 
the banker's ! 

Narrow spirits admire basely and worship meanly. 

Perhaps a gentleman is a rarer man than some of us 
think for. 

Nature has written a letter of credit upon some men's 
faces which is honored almost everywhere presented. 

A man's books may not always speak the truth, but 
they speak his mind in spite of himself. 

If every person is to be banished from society who 
runs into debt and cannot pay, what a howling wilder- 
ness and intolerable dwelling Vanity Fair would be ! 

The truth is, that by economy and good management — 
by a sparing use of ready money, and by paying scarcely 
anybody — people can, for a time at least, make a great 
show with very little means. 

A pauper child in London at seven years old knows 
how to go to market, fetch the beer, pawn a father's coat, 
choose the largest fried fish or the nicest ham bone, nurse 
Mary Jane of three, and conduct a hundred operations of 
trade or housekeeping which a little Belgravian does not 
perhaps acquire in all the days of her life. Poverty and 
necessity force this precociousness on the poor little brat. 
There are children who are accomplished shoplifters and 
liars almost as soon as they can toddle and speak. 



182 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

James Thomson. ] 

Real glory springs from the silent conquest of our- 
selves ; and without that the conquerer is naught but the 
first slave. 

Truth, justice, and reason, lose all their force and all 
their luster when they are not accompanied by agreeable 
manners. 

' Tis easier for the generous to forgive, 
Than for offence to ask it. 

Among the crooked lanes, on every hedge, 
The glow-worm lights his gem, and through 

the dark 
A moving radiance twinkles. 

Home is the resort 
Of love, of joy, of peace and plenty, where 
Supporting and supported, polished friends 
And dear relations mingle into bliss. 

Thorwaldsen.] 

Here is my statue of Christ ; it is the first of my works 
with which I have felt satisfied. Till now, my ideal has 
always been far beyond what I could execute. But it is 
no longer so. I shall never have a great idea again. 



Mark Twain.] 

It isn't worth while in these practical times, for peo- 
ple to talk about Indian poetry — there never was any in 
them — except in the Fenimore Cooper Indians. - 

I must have a prodigious quantity of mind ; it takes 
me as much as a week, sometimes, to make it up. 

It is hard to make railroading pleasant, in any country. 
It is too tedious. Stage-coaching is infinitely more de- 
lightful. 



GEMS OF THOSE AND FOETRY. 1S3 

Mark Twain.] 

.... I feel sure that three thousand feet of that 
statement is a good honest lie. 

Imagination labors best in distant fields. 

Travel and experience mar the grandest pictures, and 
rob us of the most cherished traditions of our boyhood. 

One's first thought is not likely to be strictly accurate, 
yet it is no crime to think it and none to write it down, 
subject to modification by later experience. 

When I was a boy, I somehow got the impression that 
the river Jordan was four thousand miles long, and 
thirty-five miles wide. It is ninety miles long, and so 
crooked that a man does not know which side of it he is 
on half of the time. 

They say there is no word for "home" in the French 
language. Well, considering that they have the article 
itself in such an attractive aspect, they ought to manage 
to get along without the word. Let us not waste too 
much pity on "homeless " France. I have observed that 
Frenchmen abroad seldom wholly give up the idea of 
going back to France some time or other. 



John Tyxdall.] 

There is no discovery so limited as not to illuminate 
something beyond itself. 

Without honest labor, there can be no deep joy. 

In scientific matters as in all others, there is room for 
differences of opinion. 

The world continually produces weak persons and 
wicked persons, and as long as they continue to exist side 
by side, as they do in this our day, very debasing beliefs 
will continue to infest the world. 



184 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Tyndall.] 

Every occurence in Nature is preceded by other oc- 
curences which are its causes, and succeeded by others 
which are its effects. 

You cannot study a snow-flake profoundly without be- 
ing led back by it step by step to the constitution of the 
sun. 

The profoundest minds know best that the brightest 
flashes in the world of thought are incomplete until they 
have been proved to have their counterpart in the world 
of fact. 

Jules Verne.] 

The most terrible storms, like the ii-ost violent fits of 
passion, are not lasting. 

Human precautions cannot sway the Divine will. 

Occupation need never be wanting. 

One must experience the dangers which polar naviga- 
tion presents at every moment, to have any just apprecia- 
tion of them. 

There is a strange power in words. 

Britain never abandons any of her sons. 

The faculty of colonization seems to be indigenous to 
the native character ; once let an Englishman plant his 
national standard on the surface of the moon, and it 
would not be long before a colony would be established 
round it. 



Washington.] 
Let none of the poor go away from my house hungry. 

Few men have virtue to withstand the highest bidder. 

It is impossible to govern the world without God. 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 185 

Washington.] 

To persevere in one's duty, and to be silent, is the best 
answer to calumny. 

To be prepared for war is one of the most effectual 
means of preserving peace. 

To trust altogether in the justice of our cause, without 
our own utmost exertions, would be tempting Providence. 

We must make the best of mankind as they are, since 
we cannot have them as we wish. 

Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of 
celestial fire called conscience. 



Daniel Webster.] 
The farmers are the founders of civilization. 

One may live as a conqueror, a king, or a magistrate ; 
but he must die as a man. 

Every man must educate himself. His book and 
teacher are but helps, the work is his. 

A man who is not ashamed of himself need not be 
ashamed of his early condition. 

What is valuable is not new, and what is new is not 
valuable. 

Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them 
good citizens. 

A man who cannot, to some extent, depend upon him- 
self for happiness, is to my mind one of the unfortunate. 

Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and insepa- 
rable. 

When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last 
time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the 
broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious 
Union. 



186 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

John Wesley.] 
Earn all you can, save all you can, give all you can. 

That execrable sum of all villanies, commonly called 
A Slave Trade. 

Angels our servants are, 

And keep in all our ways, 
And in their watchful hands they bear 

The sacred sons of grace. 



Benjamin West.] 

It is not numerous drawings, but the character of one, 
which makes a thorough draughtsman. 



Whittier.] 

Those children of the meadows, born 
Of sunshine and of showers. 

Alas for him who never sees 

The stars shine through his cypress-trees ! 

Of all sad words of tongue and pen, 

The saddest are these : "It might have been ! " 

The hope of all who suffer, 
The dread of all who wrong. 

All clay the darkness and the cold 

Upon my heart have lain, 
Like shadows on the winter sky, 

Like frost upon the pane. 

Couldst thou boast , O child of weakness ! 

O'er the sons of wrong and strife, 
Were their strong temptations planted 

In thy path of life ? 



GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 187 

Whittier.] 

Blessings on thee, little man, 
Barefoot boy with cheek of tan ; 
With thy turned up pantaloons, 
And thy merry whistled tunes ; 
With thy red lips, redder still 
Kissed by strawberries on the hill ; 
With the sunshine on thy face, 
Through thy torn brim's jaunty grace; 
From my heart I give thee joy : 
I was once a barefoot boy. 



N. P. Willis. 

If there is anything that keeps the mind open to angel- 
visits, and repels the ministry of ill, it is human love. 

Let us weep in our darkness, but weep not for him ! 
Not for him, who, departing, leaves millions in tears ! 
Not for him, who has died full of honor and years ! 
Not for him, who ascended Fame's ladder so high 
From the round at the top he has stepped to the sky. 



Wordsworth.] 

And ' tis my faith, that every flower 
Enjoys the air it breathes. 

A primrose by a river's brim 
A yellow primrose was to him, 
And it was nothing more. 

One impulse from a vernal wood 

May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil, and of good, 

Than all the sages can. 

Small service is true service while it lasts ; 

Of friends, however humble, scorn not one: 
The daisy, by the shadow that it casts, 

Protects the lingering dew-drops from the sun. 



188 GEMS OF PROSE AND POETRY. 

Wordsworth.] 

And homeless near a thousand homes I stood, 
And near a thousand tables pined and wanted food. 

Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her: 'tis her privilege, 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy. 



Young.] 

Night, sable goddess ! from her ebon throne, 
In rayless majesty now stretches forth 
Her leaden sceptre o'er a slumbering world. 

That life is long which answers life's great end. 
The man of wisdom is the man of years. 

How blessings brighten as they take their flight ! 

A foe to God was ne'er true friend to man. 

By night an atheist half believes in God. 

None think the great unhappy but the great. 

The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art, 
Reigns, more or less, and glows in every heart. 

Pygmies are pygmies still, though perched on Alps ; 

And pyramids are pyramids in vales. 

Each man makes his own statue, builds himself: 

Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids ; 

Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall. 




INDEX. 



Page. 

Abbott, John S. C 8, 99 

Addison, Joseph o' 99 

Agassiz, Louis J. R 60,' 100 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey 26', 100 

Andersen, Hans Christian 35, loo', 101 

Angelo, Michael 83, 101 

Arkwright, Richard '.50 

Audubon, John J 60," 101 

Bacon, Francis 5, 101, 102 

Bancroft, George . 7', ioi 

Beecher, Hemy Ward 81, 102, 103 

Beethoven, Ludwig van . . . . . 91, 104 

Black, William 37' 104 

Bonheur, Rosa 88 

Boone, Daniel * 45, 104 

Bronte, Charlotte 37^ 104 

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett 30, 105* 106 

Browning, Robert 30, 105 

Bryant, William Cullen 27 106 

Bull, Ole B 94,' 106 

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George 35, 107 

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward Robert, (" Owen Meredith,") 26, 148, 149 

Bunyan, John 76, 107 

Burns, Robert 19, 108 

Byron, George Gordon, Lord 21, 108, 109 

Calhoun, John C 68, . 109 

Calvin, John 75 

Canova, Antonio 86 

Carlyle, Thomas 9, 109, 110 

Carpenter, William B 62, 110 

Chalmers, Thomas 79, 110 

Clianning, William Ellery 79, no, 111 

Chaucer, Geoffrey 14, 111 

Chopin, Frederic F 92 

Clay, Henry 67, 111 

Clemens, Samuel L., ('• Mark Twain,") 13, 182, 183 

Coleridge. Samuel Taylor 21, 112 

Collins, William Wilkie 36, 112 

Columbus, Christopher 38 



190 INDEX. 



Cook, Captain James 41 

Cooper, James Fenimore 34, 112 

Cowper, William 19 112, 113 

Curtis, George William 12, 113, 114 

Cuvier, Georges, Baron 58 

Daguerre, Louis J. M 54 

Darwin, Charles 02, 114 

Da Vinci, see Vinci. 

Davy, Sir Humphrey 58, 114 115, 

DeFoe, Daniel 6, 115 

Dickens, Charles 33, 115, 116 

Dore, Paul Gustave 88 

Douglass, Frederick 70, 116 

Dryden, John 16, 116, 117 

Du Chaillu, Paul B. . 45, 117 

Dumas, Alexandre 35, 117 

Edison, Thomas A 56 

" Eliot, George," see Evans. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo 11, 118, 119 

Evans, Marion, (" George Eliot,") 38, 118 

Franklin, Benjamin 49, 119, 120 

Franklin, Sir John 41 

Fremont, John C 45, 120 

Fulton, Robert 52, 120 

Galilei, Galileo 47 

Gall, Dr. Franz Joseph 57, 120 

Gibbon, Edward , 6, 121 

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von 20, 121, 122 

Goldsmith, Oliver 18, 122 

Goodyear, Charles 55 

Gough, John B 69, 123 

Gray, Prof. Asa 63, 123 

Gray, Thomas 17, 123, 124 

"Greenwood, Grace," see Lippincott. 

Gutenberg, Johann 50 

Halleck, Fitz-Greene . 25, 124 

Handel, George Frederick 89, 125 

Harte, Francis Bret 12, 125 

Harvey, Dr. William 56 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel 10, 125 

Haydn, Joseph 90 

Hayne, Paul Hamilton 29, 126 

Hemans, Felicia Dorothea 31, 126, 127 

Henry, Patrick 65, 127 

Holland, J. G 11, 127, 128 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell 28, 128 

Hood, Thomas 23, 128, 129 

Howe, Eiias 55 

Howells, William Dean 12, 129, 130 

Hudson, Henry 39 

Hugo, Victor Marie 36, 130 

Humboldt, F. H. Alexander von 59, 130, 131 

Hunt, J. H. Leigh 25, 131 

Ingelow, Jean 31, 132 

Irving, Washington 9, 133 



INDEX. 191 



Jackson, Andrew C6, 134 

Jefferson, Thomas 65, 134 

Jenner, Dr. Edward 57, 135 

Johnson, Dr. Samuel 5, 135, 136 

Josephine, 72, 136, 137 

Kane, Dr. E. K 42, 137 

Keats, John . 22, 138 

Kellogg, Clara Louisa 96 

Lamb, Charles 10, 13S, 139 

Landseer, Sir Edwin - . . . 87 

Liebig, Justus von 61, 139 

Lincoln, Abraham 70, 139 

Lind, Jenny 96 

Lippincott, Sara Jane, ("Grace Greenwood,") .... 14, 124 

Liszt, Franz 92 

Livingstone, Dr. David . . 43, 140 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth 27, 140, 141 

Lowell, James Russell 29, 142 

Luther, Martin 74, 143 

Macaulay, Thomas Babington 8, 143, 144 

Martineau, Harriet 13, 145, 146, 147, 148 

Mason, Lowell 93, 148 

Mendelssohn-Bartholdy, Felix . . 91, 148 

"Meredith, Owen," see Bulwer-Lytton. 

Merle D'Aubigne, Jean Henri 9, 145 

Miller, Hugh 60, 150 

Miller, Joaquin 30, 150, 151 

Milton, John 15, 151, 152 

Moody, D. L 82, 152 

Moore, Thomas 24, 153 

Morse, Samuel F. B 53 

Motlev, John Lothrop , 8, 154 

Mozart, Wolfgang 88, 155 

Napoleon I. . 71, 155 

Newton, Sir Isaac 48, 155 

Parton, James 9, 156 

Patti, Adelina 96, 156 

Pavne, John Howard 24, 156 

Penn, William . 40, 157 

Phillips, Wendell 69, 157, 158 

Poe, Edgar Allan 23, 159 

Pope, Alexander 16, 159, 160 

Prescott, William II. 7,161 

Raleigh, Sir Walter 40, 162 

Raphael, 83 

Reade, Charles 37, 162, 163 

Rembrandt Van Ryn, Paul H 85 

Reynolds, Sir Joshua 87, 164 

Rubens, Peter Paul 85 

Ruskin, John 11, 164, 165 

St. Paul, 74, 166 

Saxe, John G 29, 166, 167 

Schiller, J. C. F. von 19, 167 

Scott, Sir Walter 31, 168, 169 



192 INDEX. 



Shakspeare, William 15, 169, 170 

Shelley, Percy Bysshe 20, 171 

Sigourney, Lydia Huntley 31, 171 

Simms, William Gilmore 36, 172 

Simpson, Matthew 80, 173 

Southey, Robert 22, 173, 174 

Spurgeon, Charles H 81, 174 

Stanley, Henry M 44, 175 

Stephenson, George 52, 175 

Storrs, R. S 81, 175, 176 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher 13, 177 

Strauss, Johann 92 

Swedenborg, Emanuel 77, 178 

Swift, Jonathan , ... 6, 178 

Talmage, Thomas De Witt 82, 179 

Taylor, Bayard 46, 179 

Tennyson, Alfred 28, 180 

Thackeray, William Makepeace 34, 181 

Thomson, James 17, 182 

Thorwaldsen, Bertel 86, 182 

Titian, ' 84 

"Twain, Mark," see Clemens. 

Tyndall, John 62, 183, 184 

Vandyke, Sir Anthony 84 

Verne, Jules 13, 184 

Victoria, • 73 

Vinci, Leonardo da 83 

Wagner, Richard 94 

Washington, George 63, 184, 185 

Watt, James 51 

Webster, Daniel 68, 185 

Wesley, John 77, 186 

West, Benjamin 87, 186 

Whitney, Eli 51 

Whittier, John G 28, 186, 187 

Willis, N. P 26, 187 

Wilkes, Charles . 43 

Wordsworth, William 24, 187, 188 

Young, Edward 17, 188 



THE END. 



